Edogawa Rampo, the pseudonym of Hirai Taro (born October 21, 1894 – died July 28, 1965), was a Japanese author and critic who played a major role in the development of Japanese mystery fiction. Many of his novels involve the macabre and the fantastic. He was deeply influenced by Western mystery writers like Edgar Allan Poe and Arthur Conan Doyle, and his pseudonym is actually a rendering of Poe's name in Japanese (Edogawa being a location in Tokyo, and Rampo being a play on "Ranpo" which sounds like "Lan Poe"). Rampo is considered the father of the Japanese detective story and has a prestigious award named after him—the Edogawa Rampo Prize, which is presented annually to outstanding mystery and detective fiction.