Shinmon Aoki

{{Short description|Japanese writer and poet (1937–2022)}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2022}}

{{Infobox writer

|name = Shinmon Aoki

|birth_date = {{Birth date|1937|4|11|df=y}}

|birth_place = Nyūzen, Shimoniikawa District, Toyama, Toyama Prefecture, Japan

|death_date = {{Death date and age|2022|8|6|1937|4|11|df=y}}

|death_place =

|genre= Fiction

|occupation=Writer, poet

}}

{{Nihongo|Shinmon Aoki|青木新門|Aoki Shinmon|extra=11 April 1937 – 6 August 2022|lead=yes}} was a Japanese writer and poet. He was best known for his memoirs Coffinman: The Journal of a Buddhist Mortician,{{cite book|last=Green|first=Ronald|title= Buddhism Goes to the Movies: Introduction to Buddhist Thought and Practice| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=FdxJAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA104 |date=4 December 2013|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-135-01994-5|page = 104}} published in 1993. The book was based on his diaries during a period in which he worked as a mortician in the 1970s, a profession which is traditionally regarded as a taboo in Japan due to their perception of death. In 2008 his memoirs were adapted into a successful Academy Award-winning feature film, Departures, by filmmaker Yōjirō Takita.{{cite book| last = Ebert | first=Roger|title=Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook 2011|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=zXQqF1qFnjsC&pg=PT307 |date= 14 December 2010|publisher= Andrews McMeel |isbn= 978-0-7407-9769-9 | page = 307}}

Aoki died on 6 August 2022, at the age of 85.{{Cite news |url=https://webun.jp/item/7871991 |title=青木新門さん死去 ８５歳、作家「納棺夫日記」|trans-title=Shinmon Aoki passes away at the age of 85, the author of 'Nokanfu Nikki' |date=7 August 2022 |website=webun.jp |access-date=7 August 2022 |lang=ja}}