starring David Duchovny. In 2006 Higashino won the 134th Naoki Prize for Yōgisha Ekkusu no Kenshin (容疑者Xの献身, The Devotion of Suspect X), an award for which he'd been nominated five times previously. Suspect X also won the 6th Honkaku Mystery Award and was ranked the number-one novel by Kono Mystery ga Sugoi! 2006 and 2006 Honkaku Mystery Best 10, annual mystery fiction guide books published in Japan. The English edition of Suspect X, translated by Alexander O. Smith, was nominated for the 2012 Edgar Award for Best Novel and the 2012 Barry Award for Best First Novel. Higashino received the Eiji Yoshikawa Literary Prize in 2014 for , When the Curtain of Prayer Descends), the 10th book to feature Detective Kyoichiro Kaga. He thought that the book was the end of the Kaga series, as he had done what he wanted to do with it. Higashino is one of the most popular authors in Asia and, reportedly, the most popular novelist in China. Translation rights for his books, like Suspect X, were sold as far afield as China, Thailand, France, Russia and Spain. Both his The Devotion of Suspect X and Salvation of a Saint were published in 6 languages. His popularity has drawn the attention of Asian academics, with papers and master's theses on his work published in China, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Taiwan, for example, but has also stimulated United States scholars. Higashino was elected president of the Mystery Writers of Japan in 2009, and served until 2013. From 2002 to 2007 he served on various MWJ selection committees, and fulfilled a similar role for the Edogawa Rampo Award from 2008 to 2013. In 2014 he became a selection member for the Naoki Prize. After the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011, Higashino donated the royalties of 100,000 copies of the reprint of Kirin no Tsubasa (麒麟の翼, The Wings of the Kirin), the sequel to Newcomer, to relief efforts in affected areas. Higashino reportedly avoids publicity as he prefers people not to recognize him on the street. Contents and style Higashino admitted in 2015 that his content and style had changed from his earlier writings, in which he treated motivation as the most important element. In a 2011 interview he stated that he wants his "readers to be continually surprised by my ideas.” In addition to mystery novels, Higashino writes essays and story books for children. His style of