Edogawa Rampo Prize

The Edogawa Rampo Prize (江戸川乱歩賞), named after Edogawa Rampo, is a Japanese literary award which has been presented every year by the Mystery Writers of Japan since 1955.

Though its name is similar to the Edgar Allan Poe Awards, which has been presented by Mystery Writers of America, the Edogawa Rampo Prize is not a counterpart of the Edgar Awards. The Japanese counterparts of the Edgar awards are the Mystery Writers of Japan Awards, which honor the best in crime fiction and critical/biographical work published in the previous year.

The Edogawa Rampo Prize is an award for unpublished mystery novels. It is sponsored by Kodansha and Fuji Television. Not only is the novel of the winner, which is selected from more than 300 entries, published by Kodansha, but the winner also receives a prize of 10,000,000 yen.

The members of the 2014 selection committee were Natsuo Kirino, Natsuhiko Kyogoku, Ira Ishida, Alice Arisugawa (ja) and Bin Konno (ja), who is the current president of the Mystery Writers of Japan.

On the Prize's 70th year in 2024, the awardees are: Yukakujima Shinju Gatari by Ryu Shimotsuki and Fake Muscle by Eitaro Hino. They were recognized as best among a total of 395 submissions, and they will each receive a statue of Edogawa Rampo plus 2,500,000 yen as prizes. Further, Kodansha will publish the winning works in August 2024.

Winners
The first and second Edogawa Rampo Prize is not the crime novel award, but an award given to persons who have made an outstanding contribution to the genre.

Finalists available in English
Not a few finalists were published in Japan.
 * 18 (1972) - Misa Yamamura (ja), The Dark Ring of Murder (黒の環状線)
 * 26 (1980) - Soji Shimada, The Tokyo Zodiac Murders (占星術殺人事件)