Playwright Inoue dies at 75

A leading Japanese playwright and novelist, Hisashi Inoue, died of lung cancer on Friday. He was 75.

Inoue started writing comic drama and plays while he was at college. His fame began when he wrote a script jointly for a puppetry drama, which was broadcast by NHK in 1964.

Inoue's plays have attracted much attention and been praised for witty writing and unique settings.

In 1972, he won the prestigious Japanese literary Naoki Prize for his novel "Tegusari Shinjuu", a work about a popular writer of the Edo period.



His play "The Face of Jizo", which is about a young woman who survived the atomic bombing and her father's ghost, has been performed in Japan and overseas and acclaimed highly.

Inoue jointly founded a peace group called the "Article 9 Association" with Nobel laureate Kenzaburo Oe and others in 2004, calling for protecting the integrity of the Japanese Constitution.