Haruki Murakami

Haruki Murakami (born January 12, 1949, Kyōto, Japan) is a Japanese novelist, short-story writer, and translator whose deeply imaginative and often ambiguous books became international bestsellers. His famous works include the novels Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (1985), Norwegian Wood (1987), and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (1994–95).

Background and influences

Murakami’s parents taught Japanese literature, and they encouraged their son’s reading, especially the classic works of great Japanese authors. While growing up, however, Murakami loved the hard-boiled detective fiction of Western writers, in particular Raymond Chandler. Other major influences included Franz Kafka, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Of the latter writer’s The Great Gatsby (1925), Murakami once said, “Had it not been for Fitzgerald’s novel, I would not be writing the kind of literature I am today (indeed, it is possible that I would not be writing at all, although that is neither here or there).”

Education, a baseball-induced epiphany, and writing his first novel

Murakami studied Greek drama at Waseda University in Tokyo. During his studies he met another student, Yoko Takahashi, whom he married in 1971. Rejecting a “company life” in which they would spend long hours in an office, he and his wife opened a jazz café in the suburbs of Tokyo in 1974. The following year Murakami graduated from Waseda, having spent seven years earning his diploma. In 1978 Murakami was watching a baseball game one day in Tokyo when he had an epiphany that he has said changed his life. He described the moment in the introduction to one of his works published in 2015:

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List of Day Jobs of Famous Writers: • Haruki Murakami: Jazz café owner

In the bottom of the first inning, [Dave] Hilton slammed [Yoshiro] Sotokoba’s first pitch into left field for a clean double. The satisfying crack when the bat met the ball resounded throughout Jingu Stadium. Scattered applause rose around me. In that instant, for no reason and on no grounds whatsoever, the thought suddenly struck me: I think I can write a novel.

He began writing in the evenings after work, completing his first novel, Kaze no uta o kike (1979; Hear the Wind Sing; film 1980), in about six months. The book won a prize for best fiction by a new writer.

Writing style

From the start Murakami’s writing was characterized by images and events that the author himself found difficult to explain but which seemed to come from the inner recesses of his memory. Some have argued that this ambiguity, far from being off-putting, was one reason for his popularity with readers, especially young ones, who were bored with the self-confessions that formed the mainstream of contemporary Japanese literature. His perceived lack of a political or intellectual stance irritated “serious” authors (such as Ōe Kenzaburō), who dismissed Murakami’s early writings as being no more than entertainment.

Works

Murakami then published 1973-nen no pinbōru (1980; Pinball, 1973) and Hitsuji o meguru bōken (1982; A Wild Sheep Chase), novels that feature the narrator of Hear the Wind Sing and his friend, known as “the Rat.” Those first three novels constituted a loose trilogy. A Wild Sheep Chase became his first major international success. (Hear the Wind Sing and Pinball, 1973, which had previously been translated into English in a limited run, were reissued in English as Wind/Pinball in 2015.) The narrator and the Rat also appeared in Murakami’s next important novel, Sekai no owari to hādoboirudo wandārando (Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World), a fantasy that was successful with the public and won the prestigious Tanizaki Prize.

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Murakami adopted a more straightforward style for the coming-of-age novel Noruwei no mori (Norwegian Wood; film 2010), which sold millions of copies in Japan and firmly established him as a literary celebrity. He then returned to the bizarre milieu of his earlier trilogy with Dansu Dansu Dansu (1988; Dance Dance Dance).

Disaffected by the social climate in Japan and by his growing fame, Murakami sojourned in Europe for several years in the late 1980s, and in 1991 he moved to the United States. While teaching at Princeton University (1991–93) and Tufts University (1993–95), Murakami wrote one of his most ambitious novels, Nejimaki-dori kuronikuru (The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle). The narrative represents a departure from his usual themes: it is devoted in part to depicting Japanese militarism on the Asian continent as a nightmare.

In 1995 Murakami returned to Japan, prompted by the Kōbe earthquake and by the sarin gas attack carried out by the AUM Shinrikyo religious sect on a Tokyo subway. The two deadly events subsequently served as inspiration for his work. Andāguraundo (1997; Underground) is a nonfiction account of the subway attack, and Kami no kodomo-tachi wa mina odoru (2000; After the Quake) is a collection of six short stories that explores the psychological effects of the earthquake on residents of Japan.

The novel Supūtoniku no koibito (1999; Sputnik Sweetheart) probes the nature of love as it tells the story of the disappearance of Sumire, a young novelist. Subsequent novels included Umibe no Kafuka (2002; Kafka on the Shore) and Afutā dāku (2004; After Dark). 1Q84 (2009), its title a reference to George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-four (1949), shifts between two characters as they navigate an alternate reality of their own making; the book’s dystopian themes range from the September 11 attacks to vigilante justice. Shikisai o motanai Tazaki Tsukuru to, kare no junrei no toshi (2013; Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage) delves into a young man’s existential quandaries, precipitated by his ejection from a circle of friends.

Murakami explored art and loneliness in his 14th novel, Kishidanchō goroshi (2017; Killing Commendatore), about a painter in the midst of marital difficulties whose life takes a bizarre turn after he moves into the house of another artist. His novel Machi to sono futashikana kabe (The City and Its Uncertain Walls), which is based on a short story he published in 1980, was released in 2023. Bearing many similarities to Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, it follows a lonely, middle-aged man as he sets on a surreal journey to a strange town in the mountains to find his first love.

The short-story collections The Elephant Vanishes (1993), Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman (2006), Men Without Women (2017), and First Person Singular (2021) translate Murakami’s stories into English. His memoir, Hashiru koto ni tsuite kataru toki ni boku no kataru koto (2007; What I Talk About When I Talk About Running), centers on his love for marathon running.

Work as translator and film adaptations

An experienced translator of American literature, Murakami also published editions in Japanese of works by Raymond Carver, Paul Theroux, Truman Capote, Ursula K. Le Guin, and J.D. Salinger. A number of Murakami’s works have been adapted into films, the most notable of which is the Academy Award-nominated Drive My Car (2021), a drama about a stage actor and director that is based on a story in the collection Men Without Women.