Ranpo Edogawa

Edogawa Ranpo (born Tarō Hirai) was a pioneering Japanese novelist and critic who played a crucial role in developing Japanese mystery fiction, best known for his stories featuring detective Kogoro Akechi. He adopted his pen name as a playful homage to Edgar Allan Poe, whom he admired, and debuted in 1923 with the mystery story 'The Two-Sen Copper Coin' [1][7]. In the postwar era, he championed mystery literature by founding the Detective Author's Club and establishing the Edogawa Ranpo Prize to encourage younger writers [1][7].