Ben Goto (五島 勉 Gotō Ben, born November 17, 1929) is a Japanese journalist and writer best known for his books on Nostradamus.[1]
Goto was born to a Russian-Orthodox family in Hakodate, Hokkaido.
Early in his career Gotō published works dealing with issues of the Second World War as well as several books supportive of Sōka Gakkai and its controversial leader, Daisaku Ikeda. He was working as a freelance writer for various women's magazines when, in 1973, he published a book named "ノストラダムスの大予言" (Nostradamus no daiyogen; "The Prophecies of Nostradamus"), which introduced Nostradamus and his prophecies to a mainstream Japanese audience for the first time. He focuses particularly on a quatrain appearing to predict a catastrophe occurring in 1999. Against a backdrop of anxiety following the 1973 oil crisis, the work became a runaway bestseller and sparked a 'Nostradamus boom' in Japanese publishing.