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49-year-old author won Japanese science-fiction award for new writers in 2003
Warning: this article contains statements about a possible suicide. If you or anyone you know is suicidal or having suicidal thoughts, please reach out to a suicide prevention organization in your country. In the United States, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is available at 1-800-273-8255. In Japan, the TELL LifeLine service is available at 03-5774-0992, and an English counseling service is available at 03-4550-1146. In Canada, Crisis Services Canada is available at 1-833-456-4566.
A resident of Himeji city in Hyogo prefecture called Japan’s emergency telephone hotline at about 7:20 a.m. on Sunday to report a body at a neighboring home. A police officer from Himeji’s Shikama Police Station rushed to the scene and discovered author Masayoshi Yasugi had died in a shed. He was 49. The police are investigating the incident as a possible suicide.
According to the police, Yasugi lived by himself. He reportedly told his younger brother this past summer that he hardly had any work due to the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19).
Yasugi won the fifth Nihon SF Shinjin-Shō (New Japanese Science Fiction Writer Prize) from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of Japan with his novel Yume-Miru Neko wa, Uchū ni Nemuru (The Dreaming Cat Sleeps in Space) in 2003. He wrote the novelization of the anime film Expelled from Paradise in 2014.
Sources: Yomiuri Shimbun, The Sankei News via Otakomu
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