Join us for a one-off event with award-winning author Akane ARAKI this October. Tickets are available below. The UK is enjoying a surge in popularity of Japanese contemporary literature. Yet, one particular genre remains overlooked: crime and mystery. Following the recent trend of Japanese works being shortlisted for the Dagger for Crime Fiction in Translation, it is clear that we have much more to explore. We’re delighted, therefore, to be collaborating with the Japan Foundation to bring prize-winning author Akane ARAKI to Cambridge for the first time this October, in celebration of her newly translated debut novel, Murder at the End of the World. ARAKI, praised by well-known mystery novelists such as Yukito AYATSUJI and Arisu ARISUGAWA, is somebody we all should watch out for, regardless of whether you are a fan of crime novels. ARAKI will be joined in conversation by Dr Victoria Young. Murder at the End of the World An asteroid is hurtling towards Earth, and the human race has just over two months to live. But twenty-three-year-old Haru, stargazer and chronic worrier, is still trying to pass her driving test. Then she finds a body in the boot of her car: a woman, stabbed and tortured. There’s a murderer on the loose. And it turns out that Haru’s driving instructor is an ex-cop with a manic devotion to justice. So, despite the small matter of an impending apocalypse, the two women team up to catch the culprit regardless of the danger. After all, the world’s not quite over yet… About Akane ARAKI Akane ARAKI was born in 1998 in Fukuoka, Japan and is a graduate of Kyushu University’s School of Letters. At 23 years old, she published her debut novel, Murder at the End of the World, after her manuscript won Japan’s most prestigious award for unpublished crime writers, the Edogawa Rampo Prize.