South Vietnamese troops in Vietnam. The novel won the prestigious Mainichi Book Award. However, Kaikō had a wide range of topics in his repertory. Natsu no yami (Darkness in Summer, 1971) was essentially a romance between a reporter and an expatriate Japanese woman living in Europe. Kaikō enriched the Japanese language with the word "apache", to denote scavengers of recyclables, described in his novel, Japan's Threepenny Opera. Considered a gourmet, in his later years, Kaikō wrote numerous essays on food and drink, as well as appearing on food-related or fishing-related TV shows and in TV commercials. He died of esophageal cancer. His grave is at the Shorei-in sub-temple of the Engaku-ji Temple complex, Kamakura, Kanagawa. Legacy His former house in Chigasaki, Kanagawa has been preserved as a memorial museum. References Powell, Irena. Japanese Writer in Vietnam: The Two Wars of Kaiko Ken (1931-89). Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 32, No. 1 (Feb., 1998), pp. 219–244 Bibliography Japan's Threepenny Opera, 1959. English translations Into a Black Sun, (English language edition: Kodansha America (1981). Five Thousand Runaways Dodd, Mead (1987) Darkness in Summer (with Cecilia Segawa Seigle), Peter Owen (1989). Giants and Toys, in: Made in Japan and Other Japanese Business Novels, transl.: Tamae K. Prindle. (1990). A Certain Voice in: Mother of Dreams and Other Short Stories, ed. by Makoto Ueda External links Kaiko Takeshi Memorial Museum, Chigasaki, Kanagawa (Japanese site) Takeshi Kaiko's grave 1930 births 1989 deaths Japanese anti-war activists Japanese essayists 20th-century Japanese novelists Japanese male short story writers Japanese war correspondents War correspondents of the Vietnam War Writers from Osaka Akutagawa Prize winners Deaths from esophageal cancer Deaths from cancer in Japan 20th-century Japanese short story writers 20th-century essayists 20th-century Japanese screenwriters