Maki Kaji, ‘godfather of sudoku’, dies aged 69 in Japan

The puzzle enthusiast and publisher is credited with turning the grid-based maths problem into a worldwide phenomenon

Maki Kaji, a Japanese publisher who popularised the numbers puzzle sudoku played daily by millions around the world, has died from cancer aged 69.

A university dropout who worked in a printing company before founding Japan's first puzzle magazine, Kaji took hints from an existing number puzzle to create what he later named sudoku" - a contraction of the Japanese for every number must be single" - sometime in the mid-80s.