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Haruki Murakami

Haruki Murakami

Overview
is a Japanese writer and translator. His works of fiction and non-fiction have garnered him critical acclaim and numerous awards, including the Franz Kafka Prize
Franz Kafka Prize
The Franz Kafka Prize is an international literary award presented in honour of Franz Kafka, the German language novelist. The prize was first awarded in 2001 and is co-sponsored by the and the city of Prague, Czech Republic. At a presentation held annually at the end of October in the Old Town...

 and Jerusalem Prize
Jerusalem Prize
The Jerusalem Prize for the Freedom of the Individual in Society is a biennial literary award given to writers whose works have dealt with themes of human freedom in society. It is awarded at the Jerusalem International Book Fair, and the recipient usually delivers an address when accepting the award...

 among others.
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Quotations

You are a beautiful person, Doctor. Clearheaded. Strong. But you seem always to be dragging your heart along the ground. From now on, little by little, you must prepare yourself to face death. If you devote all of your future energy to living, you will not be able to die well. You must begin to shift gears, a little at a time. Living and dying are, in a sense, of equal value.

Thailand

Why do people have to be this lonely? What's the point of it all? Millions of people in this world, all of them yearning, looking to others to satisfy them, yet isolating themselves. Why? Was the earth put here just to nourish human loneliness?

Sputnik Sweetheart

Numbers aren’t the important thing...what matters is deciding in your heart to accept another person completely. When you do that, it is always the first time and the last.

The Kidney-shaped Stone that Moves Every Day (translated by Jay Rubin)

Money had no name of course. And if it did have a name, it would no longer be money. What gave money its true meaning was its dark-night namelessness, its breathtaking interchangeability.

The Wind-up Bird Chronicle

But even so, every now and then I would feel a violent stab of loneliness. The very water I drink, the very air I breathed, would feel like long, sharp needles. The pages of a book in my hands would take on the threatening metallic gleam of razor blades. I could hear the roots of loneliness creeping through me when the world was hushed at 4 o'clock in the morning.

The Wind-up Bird Chronicle

He inherited from his mother's stories the fundamental style he used, unaltered, in his own stories: namely, the assumption that fact may not be truth, and truth may not be factual.

The Wind-up Bird Chronicle

To sleep with a woman: it can seem of the utmost importance in your mind, or then again it can seem like nothing much at all. Which only goes to say that there's sex as therapy (self-therapy, that is) and there's sex as pastime.

A Wild Sheep Chase

If you're in pitch blackness, all you can do is sit tight until your eyes get used to the dark.

Norwegian Wood (novel)|Norwegian Wood
Encyclopedia
is a Japanese writer and translator. His works of fiction and non-fiction have garnered him critical acclaim and numerous awards, including the Franz Kafka Prize
Franz Kafka Prize
The Franz Kafka Prize is an international literary award presented in honour of Franz Kafka, the German language novelist. The prize was first awarded in 2001 and is co-sponsored by the and the city of Prague, Czech Republic. At a presentation held annually at the end of October in the Old Town...

 and Jerusalem Prize
Jerusalem Prize
The Jerusalem Prize for the Freedom of the Individual in Society is a biennial literary award given to writers whose works have dealt with themes of human freedom in society. It is awarded at the Jerusalem International Book Fair, and the recipient usually delivers an address when accepting the award...

 among others.

He is considered an important figure in postmodern literature
Postmodern literature
The term Postmodern literature is used to describe certain characteristics of post–World War II literature and a reaction against Enlightenment ideas implicit in Modernist literature.Postmodern literature, like postmodernism as a whole, is hard to define and there is little agreement on the exact...

. The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

praised him as "among the world's greatest living novelists" for his works and achievements.

Biography


Murakami was born in Japan during the post–World War II baby boom. Although born in Kyoto
Kyoto
is a city in the central part of the island of Honshū, Japan. It has a population close to 1.5 million. Formerly the imperial capital of Japan, it is now the capital of Kyoto Prefecture, as well as a major part of the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto metropolitan area.-History:...

, he spent his youth in Shukugawa (Nishinomiya), Ashiya
Ashiya, Hyogo
is a city founded on November 10, 1940 located in Hyōgo, Japan, between the cities of Osaka and Kobe.-Demographics:As of 2009, the city has an estimated population of 93,094 and the density of 5,030 persons per km². The total area is 18.47 km²...

 and Kobe
Kobe
, pronounced , is the fifth-largest city in Japan and is the capital city of Hyōgo Prefecture on the southern side of the main island of Honshū, approximately west of Osaka...

. His father was the son of a Buddhist
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...

 priest, and his mother the daughter of an Osaka
Osaka
is a city in the Kansai region of Japan's main island of Honshu, a designated city under the Local Autonomy Law, the capital city of Osaka Prefecture and also the biggest part of Keihanshin area, which is represented by three major cities of Japan, Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe...

 merchant. Both taught Japanese literature
Japanese literature
Early works of Japanese literature were heavily influenced by cultural contact with China and Chinese literature, often written in Classical Chinese. Indian literature also had an influence through the diffusion of Buddhism in Japan...

.

Since childhood, Murakami has been heavily influenced by Western culture, particularly Western music and literature. He grew up reading a range of works by American writers, such as Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. was a 20th century American writer. His works such as Cat's Cradle , Slaughterhouse-Five and Breakfast of Champions blend satire, gallows humor and science fiction. He was known for his humanist beliefs and was honorary president of the American Humanist Association.-Early...

 and Richard Brautigan
Richard Brautigan
Richard Gary Brautigan was an American novelist, poet, and short story writer. His work often employs black comedy, parody, and satire. He is best known for his 1967 novel Trout Fishing in America.- Early life :...

, and he is often distinguished from other Japanese writers by his Western influences.

Murakami studied drama at Waseda University
Waseda University
, abbreviated as , is one of the most prestigious private universities in Japan and Asia. Its main campuses are located in the northern part of Shinjuku, Tokyo. Founded in 1882 as Tokyo Senmon Gakko, the institution was renamed "Waseda University" in 1902. It is known for its liberal climate...

 in Tokyo, where he met his wife, Yoko. His first job was at a record store, which is where one of his main characters, Toru Watanabe in Norwegian Wood
Norwegian Wood (novel)
is a 1987 novel by Japanese author Haruki Murakami.The novel is a nostalgic story of loss and sexuality. The story's protagonist and narrator is Toru Watanabe, who looks back on his days as a college student living in Tokyo...

, works. Shortly before finishing his studies, Murakami opened the coffeehouse (jazz bar, in the evening) "Peter Cat" in Kokubunji, Tokyo
Kokubunji, Tokyo
is a city in Tokyo, Japan.As of 1 June 2008, the city has an estimated population of 117,335 . The total area is 11.48 km²...

 with his wife (1974-1981).

Many of his novels have themes and titles that invoke classical music, such as the three books making up The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
is a novel by Haruki Murakami. The first published translation was by Alfred Birnbaum. The American translation and its British adaptation, dubbed the "only official translations" are by Jay Rubin and were first published in 1997...

: The Thieving Magpie (after Rossini's opera), Bird as Prophet (after a piano piece by Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....

 usually known in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 as The Prophet Bird), and The Bird-Catcher (a character in Mozart's opera The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute is an opera in two acts composed in 1791 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a Singspiel, a popular form that included both singing and spoken dialogue....

). Some of his novels take their titles from songs: Dance, Dance, Dance (after The Dells
The Dells
The Dells are an R&B and crossover musical group. Their successful recordings spanned more than four decades. Formed in 1952 after attending high school together, the Dells' repertoire has included doo-wop, jazz, soul, disco and contemporary rhythm and blues...

' song, although it is widely thought it was titled after the Beach Boys
The Beach Boys
The Beach Boys are an American rock band, formed in 1961 in Hawthorne, California. The group was initially composed of brothers Brian, Dennis and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, and friend Al Jardine. Managed by the Wilsons' father Murry, The Beach Boys signed to Capitol Records in 1962...

 tune
Dance, Dance, Dance (song)
"Dance, Dance, Dance" is a song written by Brian Wilson, Carl Wilson and Mike Love for the American rock band The Beach Boys. It was released on their 1965 album Today!. It was also released as a single in 1964, with the B-side of the single being "The Warmth of the Sun." The single peaked at #8...

), Norwegian Wood
Norwegian Wood (novel)
is a 1987 novel by Japanese author Haruki Murakami.The novel is a nostalgic story of loss and sexuality. The story's protagonist and narrator is Toru Watanabe, who looks back on his days as a college student living in Tokyo...

(after The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...

' song
Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)
"Norwegian Wood " is a song by The Beatles, first released on the 1965 album Rubber Soul....

) and South of the Border, West of the Sun
South of the Border, West of the Sun
is a short, melancholic novel written by the popular Japanese novelist, Haruki Murakami, in 1992 while he was a visiting scholar at the Princeton University in the United States. The English translation by Philip Gabriel was released in 1999. Part of the title, 'South of the Border,' refers to the...

(the first part being the title of a song by Nat King Cole
Nat King Cole
Nathaniel Adams Coles , known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American musician who first came to prominence as a leading jazz pianist. Although an accomplished pianist, he owes most of his popular musical fame to his soft baritone voice, which he used to perform in big band and jazz genres...

).

Murakami is a keen marathon runner and triathlete, although he did not start running until he was 33 years old. On June 23, 1996, he completed his first ultramarathon
Ultramarathon
An ultramarathon is any sporting event involving running longer than the traditional marathon length of .There are two types of ultramarathon events: those that cover a specified distance, and events that take place during specified time...

, a 100-kilometer race around Lake Saroma
Lake Saroma
also Saroma Lagoon is a body of brackish water in Saroma, Kitami, and Yūbetsu Hokkaidō, Japan. It is located in Abashiri Quasi-National Park. By area, the lake is the third largest in Japan and the largest in Hokkaidō....

 in Hokkaido, Japan. He discusses his relationship with running in his 2008 work What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running is a memoir by Haruki Murakami in which he writes about his interest and participation in long-distance running...

.

Trilogy of the Rat


Murakami wrote his first fiction when he was 29. He said he was inspired to write his first novel, 1979's Hear the Wind Sing, while watching a baseball
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...

 game. In 1978, Murakami was in Jingu Stadium
Meiji Jingu Stadium
is a baseball stadium in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan. It opened in 1926 and holds 37,933 spectators. Property of the Meiji Shrine, it is the home field of the Tokyo Yakult Swallows professional baseball team...

 watching a game between the Yakult Swallows and the Hiroshima Carp when Dave Hilton, an American, came to bat. According to an oft-repeated story, in the instant that Hilton hit a double, Murakami suddenly realized he could write a novel. He went home and began writing that night. Murakami worked on it for several months in very brief stretches after working days at the bar. He completed a novel and sent it to the only literary contest that would accept a work of that length, and won first prize.

Murakami's initial success with Hear the Wind Sing
Hear the Wind Sing
is the first novel by Japanese author, Haruki Murakami; it first appeared in the June 1979 issue of Gunzo, one of the most influential literary magazines in Japan. It is the first book in the "Trilogy of the Rat" series, which is followed by Pinball, 1973 and A Wild Sheep Chase . An English...

encouraged him to continue writing. A year later, he published Pinball, 1973
Pinball, 1973
is a novel published in 1980 by Japanese author Haruki Murakami. The second book in the "Trilogy of the Rat" series, it is preceded by Hear the Wind Sing and followed by A Wild Sheep Chase , and is the second novel written by Murakami....

, a sequel. In 1982, he published A Wild Sheep Chase
A Wild Sheep Chase
is a novel published in 1982 by Japanese author Haruki Murakami. It is the sequel to Pinball, 1973, and is the third book in Murakami's "Trilogy of the Rat"....

, a critical success. Hear the Wind Sing, Pinball, 1973, and A Wild Sheep Chase form the Trilogy of the Rat (a sequel, Dance, Dance, Dance, was written later but is not considered part of the series), centered on the same unnamed narrator and his friend, "the Rat". The first two novels are unpublished in English translation outside of Japan, where an English edition with extensive translation notes was published as part of a series intended for English students. Murakami considers his first two novels to be "weak," and was not eager to have them translated into English. A Wild Sheep Chase was "The first book where I could feel a kind of sensation, the joy of telling a story. When you read a good story, you just keep reading. When I write a good story, I just keep writing."

Wider recognition



In 1985, Murakami wrote Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
is a 1985 novel by Japanese writer Haruki Murakami. The English translation by Alfred Birnbaum was released in 1991. A strange and dreamlike novel, its chapters alternate between two bizarre narratives — the 'Hard-Boiled Wonderland' and 'The End of the World' parts.-Plot summary:The story is split...

, a dream-like fantasy that takes the magical elements in his work to a new extreme. Murakami achieved a major breakthrough and national recognition in 1987 with the publication of Norwegian Wood
Norwegian Wood (novel)
is a 1987 novel by Japanese author Haruki Murakami.The novel is a nostalgic story of loss and sexuality. The story's protagonist and narrator is Toru Watanabe, who looks back on his days as a college student living in Tokyo...

, a nostalgic story of loss and sexuality. It sold millions of copies among Japanese youths, making Murakami a literary superstar in his native country. The book was printed in two separate volumes, sold together, so that the number of books sold actually doubled, creating the million-copy bestseller hype. One book had a green cover, the other one red.

In 1986, Murakami left Japan, traveled throughout Europe, and settled in the United States. He was a writing fellow at Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....

 in Princeton, New Jersey
Princeton, New Jersey
Princeton is a community located in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. It is best known as the location of Princeton University, which has been sited in the community since 1756...

, and at Tufts University
Tufts University
Tufts University is a private research university located in Medford/Somerville, near Boston, Massachusetts. It is organized into ten schools, including two undergraduate programs and eight graduate divisions, on four campuses in Massachusetts and on the eastern border of France...

 in Medford, Massachusetts
Medford, Massachusetts
Medford is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, in the United States, on the Mystic River, five miles northwest of downtown Boston. In the 2010 U.S. Census, Medford's population was 56,173...

. During this time he wrote South of the Border, West of the Sun and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.

An established novelist


In 1994–95, he published The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
is a novel by Haruki Murakami. The first published translation was by Alfred Birnbaum. The American translation and its British adaptation, dubbed the "only official translations" are by Jay Rubin and were first published in 1997...

, a novel that fuses realistic and fantastic tendencies, and contains elements of physical violence. It is also more socially conscious than his previous work, dealing in part with the difficult topic of war crimes in Manchukuo
War crimes in Manchukuo
War crimes in Manchukuo were committed during the rule of the Empire of Japan in northeast China, either directly, or through its puppet state of Manchukuo, from 1931 to 1945...

 (Northeast China
Northeast China
Northeast China, historically known in English as Manchuria, is a geographical region of China, consisting of the three provinces of Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang. The region is sometimes called the Three Northeast Provinces...

). The novel won the Yomiuri Prize
Yomiuri Prize
The is a prestigious literary award in Japan. The prize was founded in 1948 by the Yomiuri Shinbun Company to help form a "cultural nation". The winner is awarded one million Japanese yen and an inkstone.-Award categories:...

, awarded by one of his harshest former critics, Kenzaburo Oe
Kenzaburo Oe
is a Japanese author and a major figure in contemporary Japanese literature. His works, strongly influenced by French and American literature and literary theory, deal with political, social and philosophical issues including nuclear weapons, social non-conformism and existentialism.Ōe was awarded...

, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1994.

The processing of collective trauma
Collective trauma
A collective trauma is a traumatic psychological effect shared by a group of people of any size, up to and including an entire society. Traumatic events witnessed by an entire society can stir up collective sentiment, often resulting in a shift in that society's culture and mass actions.Well known...

 soon became an important theme in Murakami's writing, which had until then been more personal in nature. While he was finishing The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Japan was shaken by the Kobe earthquake and the Aum Shinrikyo gas attack
Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway
The Sarin attack on the Tokyo subway, usually referred to in the Japanese media as the , was an act of domestic terrorism perpetrated by members of Aum Shinrikyo on March 20, 1995....

, in the aftermath of which he returned to Japan. He came to terms with these events with his first work of non-fiction, Underground
Underground (stories)
is a book by Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami about the 1995 Aum Shinrikyo sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway. Described as a work of "journalistic literature," it collects a series of separate interviews Murakami conducted with 60 victims of the attacks and 8 members of Aum, descriptions of how...

, and the short story collection after the quake
After the quake
is a collection of short stories by Japanese author Haruki Murakami. First published in 2000, it was released in English as after the quake in 2002 .-Background:...

. Underground consists largely of interviews of victims of the gas attacks in the Tokyo subway system. English translations of many of his short stories written between 1983 and 1990 have been collected in The Elephant Vanishes
The Elephant Vanishes
The Elephant Vanishes is a collection of short stories by Japanese author Haruki Murakami. The stories were written between 1983 and 1990, and the collection's first English publication was in 1993...

. Murakami has also translated many of the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was an American author of novels and short stories, whose works are the paradigm writings of the Jazz Age, a term he coined himself. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. Fitzgerald is considered a member of the "Lost...

, Raymond Carver
Raymond Carver
Raymond Clevie Carver, Jr. was an American short story writer and poet. Carver is considered a major American writer of the late 20th century and also a major force in the revitalization of the short story in the 1980s....

, Truman Capote
Truman Capote
Truman Streckfus Persons , known as Truman Capote , was an American author, many of whose short stories, novels, plays, and nonfiction are recognized literary classics, including the novella Breakfast at Tiffany's and the true crime novel In Cold Blood , which he labeled a "nonfiction novel." At...

, John Irving
John Irving
John Winslow Irving is an American novelist and Academy Award-winning screenwriter.Irving achieved critical and popular acclaim after the international success of The World According to Garp in 1978...

, and Paul Theroux
Paul Theroux
Paul Edward Theroux is an American travel writer and novelist, whose best known work of travel writing is perhaps The Great Railway Bazaar . He has also published numerous works of fiction, some of which were made into feature films. He was awarded the 1981 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his...

, among others, into Japanese.

Since 2000


Sputnik Sweetheart
Sputnik Sweetheart
is a novel by Haruki Murakami, published in Japan, by Kodansha, in 1999. An English translation by Philip Gabriel was published in 2001.-Plot summary:The plot features three main characters: Sumire, Miu, and 'K'....

was first published in 1999. Kafka on the Shore
Kafka on the Shore
is a 2002 novel by Japanese author Haruki Murakami. John Updike described it as a "real page-turner, as well as an insistently metaphysical mind-bender"...

was published in 2002, with the English translation following in 2005. It won the World Fantasy Award for Novels in 2006. The English version of his novel After Dark
After Dark (novel)
is a novel by Japanese author Haruki Murakami. It was originally published in 2004.-Plot summary:Alienation, a recurring motif in the works of Murakami, is the central theme in this novel set in metropolitan Tokyo over the course of one night. Main characters include Mari, a 19-year-old student,...

was released in May 2007. It was chosen by the New York Times as a "notable book of the year". In late 2005, Murakami published a collection of short stories titled Tōkyō Kitanshū, or 東京奇譚集, which translates loosely as "Mysteries of Tokyo". A collection of the English versions of twenty-four short stories, titled Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman is a collection of short stories by Japanese author Haruki Murakami....

, was published in August 2006. This collection includes both older works from the 1980s as well as some of Murakami's most recent short stories, including all five that appear in Tōkyō Kitanshū.

Murakami published the anthology Birthday Stories
Birthday Stories
Birthday Stories is a 2002 short story anthology in 192 pages by Japanese author Haruki Murakami. Despite the theme's happy connotations most of the short stories have a dark, melancholic atmosphere.- Contents :...

, which collects short stories on the theme of birthdays. The collection includes work by Russell Banks
Russell Banks
Russell Banks is an American writer of fiction and poetry.- Biography :Russell Banks was born in Newton, Massachusetts on March 28, 1940. He attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He lives in upstate New York, and has been named a New York State Author. He is also...

, Ethan Canin
Ethan Canin
Ethan Andrew Canin is an American author, educator, and physician. He is a member of the faculty of the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa....

, Raymond Carver
Raymond Carver
Raymond Clevie Carver, Jr. was an American short story writer and poet. Carver is considered a major American writer of the late 20th century and also a major force in the revitalization of the short story in the 1980s....

, David Foster Wallace
David Foster Wallace
David Foster Wallace was an American author of novels, essays, and short stories, and a professor at Pomona College in Claremont, California...

, Denis Johnson
Denis Johnson
Denis Hale Johnson is an American author who is known for his short-story collection Jesus' Son and his novel Tree of Smoke , which won the National Book Award. He also writes plays, poetry and non-fiction.- Biography :...

, Claire Keegan
Claire Keegan
Claire Keegan is an Irish short story writer. She was born in County Wicklow in 1968, the youngest of a large Roman Catholic family. She travelled to New Orleans, Louisiana when she was seventeen and studied English and Political Science at Loyola University...

, Andrea Lee
Andrea Lee
Andrea Lee is an American author of novels and memoirs. Her stories are often international in setting and deal with questions of racial and national identity, as well as collisions between cultures. Lee grew up in Philadelphia...

, Daniel Lyons
Daniel Lyons
Daniel Lyons is an American writer. He was a senior editor at Forbes magazine and is now a writer at Newsweek.-Career:He has written a book of short stories, The Last Good Man , a novel, Dog Days , and a fictional biography, Options: The Secret Life of Steve Jobs, a Parody...

, Lynda Sexson, Paul Theroux
Paul Theroux
Paul Edward Theroux is an American travel writer and novelist, whose best known work of travel writing is perhaps The Great Railway Bazaar . He has also published numerous works of fiction, some of which were made into feature films. He was awarded the 1981 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his...

, and William Trevor
William Trevor
William Trevor, KBE is an Irish author and playwright. He is considered one of the elder statesman of the Irish literary world and widely regarded as the greatest contemporary writer of short stories in the English language....

, as well as a story by Murakami himself. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running is a memoir by Haruki Murakami in which he writes about his interest and participation in long-distance running...

, containing tales about his experience as a marathon runner and a triathlete, has been published in Japan, with English translations released in the U.K. and the U.S. The title is a play on that of Raymond Carver
Raymond Carver
Raymond Clevie Carver, Jr. was an American short story writer and poet. Carver is considered a major American writer of the late 20th century and also a major force in the revitalization of the short story in the 1980s....

's collection of short stories, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love is the name of a 1981 collection of short stories by American writer Raymond Carver, as well as the title of one of the stories in the collection.-Why Don't You Dance?:...

.

Shinchosha Publishing
Shinchosha
is a publisher founded in 1896 in Japan and headquartered in Yaraichō, Shinjuku, Tokyo. Shinchosha is one of the sponsors of the Japan Fantasy Novel Award.-Monthly:* ENGINE* Foresight* nicola*Shinchō-External links:*...

 published Murakami's novel, 1Q84
1Q84
1Q84 is a novel by Haruki Murakami, first published in three volumes in Japan in 2009–10. The novel quickly became a sensation, with its first printing selling out the day it was released, and reaching sales of one million within a month...

, in Japan on May 29, 2009. 1Q84 is pronounced as 'ichi kyū hachi yon', the same as 1984
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell is a dystopian novel about Oceania, a society ruled by the oligarchical dictatorship of the Party...

, as 9 is also pronounced as 'kyū' in Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...

.

Murakami donated his €80,000 winnings from the 2011 International Catalunya prize to the victims of the 11 March earthquake and tsunami, and to those affected by the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Accepting the award, he said in his speech that the situation at the Fukushima plant was the second major nuclear disaster that the Japanese people have experienced—however, this time it was not a bomb being dropped upon us, but a mistake committed by our very own hands. According to Murakami, the Japanese people should have rejected nuclear power after having "learned through the sacrifice of the hibakusha
Hibakusha
The surviving victims of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are called , a Japanese word that literally translates to "explosion-affected people"...

 just how badly radiation leaves scars on the world and human wellbeing".

Recognition


In 2006, Murakami became the sixth recipient of the Franz Kafka Prize
Franz Kafka Prize
The Franz Kafka Prize is an international literary award presented in honour of Franz Kafka, the German language novelist. The prize was first awarded in 2001 and is co-sponsored by the and the city of Prague, Czech Republic. At a presentation held annually at the end of October in the Old Town...

 from the Czech Republic
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....

 for his novel Umibe no Kafuka (Kafka on the Shore
Kafka on the Shore
is a 2002 novel by Japanese author Haruki Murakami. John Updike described it as a "real page-turner, as well as an insistently metaphysical mind-bender"...

).

In September 2007, he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Liège
University of Liège
The University of Liège , in Liège, Wallonia, Belgium, is a major public university in the French Community of Belgium. Its official language is French.-History:...

, as well as one from Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....

 in June 2008.

In January 2009 Murakami received the Jerusalem Prize
Jerusalem Prize
The Jerusalem Prize for the Freedom of the Individual in Society is a biennial literary award given to writers whose works have dealt with themes of human freedom in society. It is awarded at the Jerusalem International Book Fair, and the recipient usually delivers an address when accepting the award...

, a biennial literary award given to writers whose work has dealt with themes of human freedom, society, politics, and government. There were protests in Japan and elsewhere against his attending the February award ceremony in Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

 (including threats to boycott his work) as a response against Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

's recent bombing of Gaza
Gaza
Gaza , also referred to as Gaza City, is a Palestinian city in the Gaza Strip, with a population of about 450,000, making it the largest city in the Palestinian territories.Inhabited since at least the 15th century BC,...

. Murakami chose to attend the ceremony, but gave a speech to the gathered Israeli dignitaries harshly criticizing Israeli policies. Murakami said, "Each of us possesses a tangible living soul. The system has no such thing. We must not allow the system to exploit us."

Criticism and influence


Murakami's fiction, often criticized by Japan's literary establishment
Japanese literature
Early works of Japanese literature were heavily influenced by cultural contact with China and Chinese literature, often written in Classical Chinese. Indian literature also had an influence through the diffusion of Buddhism in Japan...

, is humorous and surreal, and at the same time focusses on themes of alienation
Social alienation
The term social alienation has many discipline-specific uses; Roberts notes how even within the social sciences, it “is used to refer both to a personal psychological state and to a type of social relationship”...

 and loneliness. Through his work, he is able to capture the spiritual
Spirituality
Spirituality can refer to an ultimate or an alleged immaterial reality; an inner path enabling a person to discover the essence of his/her being; or the “deepest values and meanings by which people live.” Spiritual practices, including meditation, prayer and contemplation, are intended to develop...

 emptiness of his generation and explore the negative effects of Japan's work
Karoshi
, which can be translated literally from Japanese as "death from overwork", is occupational sudden death. Although this category has a significant count, Japan is one of the few countries that reports it in the statistics as a separate category...

-dominated mentality. His writing criticizes the decline in human values and a loss of connection among people in Japan's society.

Murakami was awarded the 2007 Kiriyama Prize
Kiriyama Prize
The Kiriyama Prize is an international literary award given to books which will encourage greater understanding of and among the peoples and nations of the Pacific Rim and South Asia...

 for Fiction for his collection of short stories Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman is a collection of short stories by Japanese author Haruki Murakami....

, but according to the Kiriyama Official Website, Murakami "declined to accept the award for reasons of personal principle".

Films and other adaptations


Murakami's first novel Hear the Wind Sing
Hear the Wind Sing
is the first novel by Japanese author, Haruki Murakami; it first appeared in the June 1979 issue of Gunzo, one of the most influential literary magazines in Japan. It is the first book in the "Trilogy of the Rat" series, which is followed by Pinball, 1973 and A Wild Sheep Chase . An English...

(Kaze no uta o kike) was adapted by Japanese director Kazuki Ōmori
Kazuki Omori
is a Japanese film director and screenwriter.-Career:Born in Osaka, Ōmori studied at Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine and actually holds a license to practice medicine. While in school, he began making films independently, with Kuraku naru made matenai! , which featured Seijun Suzuki,...

. The film was released in 1981 and distributed by Art Theatre Guild
Art Theatre Guild
Art Theatre Guild was a film production company in Japan that started in 1961 and ran through to the mid 1980s. ATG, as it is abbreviated, released mostly Japanese New Wave films. Films released by ATG include Nagisa Oshima's Diary Of A Shinjuku Thief , Toshio Matsumoto's masterpiece Funeral...

. Naoto Yamakawa directed two short films Attack on the Bakery (released in 1982) and A Girl, She is 100 Percent (released in 1983), based on Murakami's short stories The Second Bakery Attack and On Seeing the 100% Perfect Woman One Beautiful April Morning respectively. Japanese director Jun Ichikawa adapted Murakami's short story Tony Takitani
Tony Takitani
Tony Takitani is a 2004 Japanese film directed by Jun Ichikawa, based on the short story by Haruki Murakami.-Inspiration:Haruki Murakami was intrigued by the name Tony Takitani when, at a garage sale on Maui, he found a yellow T-shirt that said, "Tony Takitani, House ."At the time, Takitani was...

into a 75-minute feature. The film
Tony Takitani
Tony Takitani is a 2004 Japanese film directed by Jun Ichikawa, based on the short story by Haruki Murakami.-Inspiration:Haruki Murakami was intrigued by the name Tony Takitani when, at a garage sale on Maui, he found a yellow T-shirt that said, "Tony Takitani, House ."At the time, Takitani was...

 played at various film festivals and was released in New York and Los Angeles on July 29, 2005. The original short story (as translated by Jay Rubin
Jay Rubin
Jay Rubin is an American academic and translator. He is most notable for being one of the main translators into English of the works of the Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami. He has also written a guide to Japanese, Making Sense of Japanese , and a biographical literary analysis of Murakami.He has...

) is available in the April 15, 2002 issue of The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...

, as a stand-alone book published by Cloverfield Press
Cloverfield Press
Cloverfield Press is a small press in Los Angeles, California published by Matthew Greenfield and Laurence Dumortier. Inspired by Leonard and Virginia Woolf's Hogarth Press, Cloverfield Press has produced hand-printed letterpress books of Haruki Murakami's Tony Takitani and Miranda July's The Boy...

, and part of Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman is a collection of short stories by Japanese author Haruki Murakami....

by Knopf. In 1998 the German film Der Eisbaer (Polar Bear), written and directed by Granz Henman, used elements of Murakami's short story The Second Bakery Attack in three intersecting story lines.

Murakami's work was also adapted for the stage in a 2003 play entitled The Elephant Vanishes
The Elephant Vanishes
The Elephant Vanishes is a collection of short stories by Japanese author Haruki Murakami. The stories were written between 1983 and 1990, and the collection's first English publication was in 1993...

, co-produced by Britain's Complicite
Complicite
The British theatre company Complicite was founded in 1983 by Simon McBurney, Annabel Arden, and Marcello Magni. Its original name was Théâtre de Complicité. "The Company's inimitable style of visual and devised theatre [has] an emphasis on strong, corporeal, poetic and surrealist image supporting...

 company and Japan's Setagaya Public Theatre. The production, directed by Simon McBurney
Simon McBurney
Simon Montagu McBurney, OBE is an English actor, writer and director. He is the founder and artistic director of Théâtre de Complicité in England, now called Complicite.-Early life:...

, adapted three of Murakami's short stories and received acclaim for unique blending of multimedia (video, music, and innovative sound design) with actor-driven physical theater (mime, dance, and even acrobatic wire work). On tour, the play was performed in Japanese, with supertitles translation for European and American audiences.

Two stories from Murakami's book after the quake—"Honey Pie" and ""Superfrog Saves Tokyo"—have been adapted for the stage and directed by Frank Galati. Entitled after the quake, the play was first performed at the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in association with La Jolla Playhouse
La Jolla Playhouse
La Jolla Playhouse is a not-for-profit, professional theatre-in-residence on the campus of the University of California, San Diego. -Background:...

, and opened on October 12, 2007 at Berkeley Repertory Theatre. In 2008, Galati adapted and directed a theatrical version of Kafka on the Shore also first running at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theater from September to November.

On Max Richter
Max Richter (Composer)
Max Richter is a German-born British composer.-Biography:Richter studied composition and piano at University of Edinburgh, the Royal Academy of Music and with Luciano Berio in Florence. After finishing his studies, Richter co-founded the contemporary classical ensemble Piano Circus...

's 2006 album Songs from Before, Robert Wyatt
Robert Wyatt
Robert Wyatt is an English musician, and founding member of the influential Canterbury scene band Soft Machine, with a long and distinguished solo career...

 reads passages from Murakami's novels. In 2007, Robert Logevall adapted All God's Children Can Dance into a film, with a soundtrack composed by American jam band Sound Tribe Sector 9
Sound Tribe Sector 9
Sound Tribe Sector 9 is an instrumental band known for their live performances. The band’s genre-blending sound is based heavily on instrumental rock and electronic music crossed with elements of funk, jazz, drum and bass, psychedelia, and hip hop...

. In 2008, Tom Flint adapted On Seeing the 100% Perfect Woman One Beautiful April Morning into a short film. The film was screened at the 2008 CON-CAN Movie Festival
2008 CON-CAN Movie Festival
The 2008 CON-CAN Movie Festival is the 5th online short movie festival hosted by Media Research, Inc. The movie festival began on May 1, 2008 with the 20 movies selected for Group A being uploaded to the website, and is scheduled to conclude in Mid-November with an award ceremony in Tokyo,...

. The film was viewed, voted, and commented upon as part of the audience award for the movie festival.

It was announced in July 2008 that French-Vietnamese director Tran Anh Hung
Tran Anh Hung
Trần Anh Hùng is a French film director of Vietnamese ancestry.He was born in Đà Nẵng, Central Vietnam, and emigrated to France when he was 12 following the fall of Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War in 1975....

 would direct an adaptation of Murakami's novel, Norwegian Wood
Norwegian Wood (novel)
is a 1987 novel by Japanese author Haruki Murakami.The novel is a nostalgic story of loss and sexuality. The story's protagonist and narrator is Toru Watanabe, who looks back on his days as a college student living in Tokyo...

. The film was released in Japan on 11 December 2010.

In 2010, Stephen Earnhart adapted The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
is a novel by Haruki Murakami. The first published translation was by Alfred Birnbaum. The American translation and its British adaptation, dubbed the "only official translations" are by Jay Rubin and were first published in 1997...

 into a 2 hour multimedia stage presentation. The show opened January 12, 2010 as part of the Public Theater's "Under the Radar
Under the Radar Festival
The Under the Radar Festival is a theater festival in New York City, founded in 2005 by Mark Russell, former Artistic Director of P.S. 122 for over twenty years and also Guest Artistic Director for the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art's Time-Based Art Festival in 2006...

" festival at the Ohio Theater, presented in association with The Asia Society
Asia Society
The Asia Society is a non-profit organization that focuses on educating the world about Asia. It has several centers in the United States and around the world Hong Kong, Manila, Mumbai, Seoul, Shanghai, and Melbourne...

 and the Baryshnikov Arts Center. The show had its world premiere at the Edinburgh International Festival
Edinburgh International Festival
The Edinburgh International Festival is a festival of performing arts that takes place in the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, over three weeks from around the middle of August. By invitation from the Festival Director, the International Festival brings top class performers of music , theatre, opera...

 on August 21, 2011. The presentation incorporates live actors, video projection, traditional Japanese puppetry
Bunraku
, also known as Ningyō jōruri , is a form of traditional Japanese puppet theater, founded in Osaka in 1684.Three kinds of performers take part in a bunraku performance:* Ningyōtsukai or Ningyōzukai—puppeteers* Tayū—the chanters* Shamisen players...

, and immersive soundscapes to render the surreal landscape of the original work.

Each short story in Murakami's after the quake collection was adapted into a six-song EP entitled .DC: JPN (after the quake 2011) in March 2011 following the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami
2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami
The 2011 earthquake off the Pacific coast of Tohoku, also known as the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, or the Great East Japan Earthquake, was a magnitude 9.0 undersea megathrust earthquake off the coast of Japan that occurred at 14:46 JST on Friday, 11 March 2011, with the epicenter approximately east...

 to help benefit the relief efforts by musician Dre Carlan.

Novels

Original Title Original Publication Date English Title English Publication Date

Kaze no uta o kike
1979 Hear the Wind Sing
Hear the Wind Sing
is the first novel by Japanese author, Haruki Murakami; it first appeared in the June 1979 issue of Gunzo, one of the most influential literary magazines in Japan. It is the first book in the "Trilogy of the Rat" series, which is followed by Pinball, 1973 and A Wild Sheep Chase . An English...

1987

1973-nen no pinbōru
1980 Pinball, 1973
Pinball, 1973
is a novel published in 1980 by Japanese author Haruki Murakami. The second book in the "Trilogy of the Rat" series, it is preceded by Hear the Wind Sing and followed by A Wild Sheep Chase , and is the second novel written by Murakami....

1985

Hitsuji o meguru bōken
1982 A Wild Sheep Chase
A Wild Sheep Chase
is a novel published in 1982 by Japanese author Haruki Murakami. It is the sequel to Pinball, 1973, and is the third book in Murakami's "Trilogy of the Rat"....

1989

Sekai no owari to hādoboirudo wandārando
1985 Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
is a 1985 novel by Japanese writer Haruki Murakami. The English translation by Alfred Birnbaum was released in 1991. A strange and dreamlike novel, its chapters alternate between two bizarre narratives — the 'Hard-Boiled Wonderland' and 'The End of the World' parts.-Plot summary:The story is split...

1991

Noruwei no mori
1987 Norwegian Wood
Norwegian Wood (novel)
is a 1987 novel by Japanese author Haruki Murakami.The novel is a nostalgic story of loss and sexuality. The story's protagonist and narrator is Toru Watanabe, who looks back on his days as a college student living in Tokyo...

2000

Dansu dansu dansu
1988 Dance Dance Dance
Dance Dance Dance
is the sixth novel by Japanese writer Haruki Murakami. First published in 1988, the English translation by Alfred Birnbaum was released in 1994. The book is a sequel to Murakami's novel A Wild Sheep Chase, although the plot lines are not entirely contiguous...

1994

Kokkyō no minami, taiyō no nishi
1992 South of the Border, West of the Sun
South of the Border, West of the Sun
is a short, melancholic novel written by the popular Japanese novelist, Haruki Murakami, in 1992 while he was a visiting scholar at the Princeton University in the United States. The English translation by Philip Gabriel was released in 1999. Part of the title, 'South of the Border,' refers to the...

2000

Nejimaki-dori kuronikuru
1995 The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
is a novel by Haruki Murakami. The first published translation was by Alfred Birnbaum. The American translation and its British adaptation, dubbed the "only official translations" are by Jay Rubin and were first published in 1997...

1997

Supūtoniku no koibito
1999 Sputnik Sweetheart
Sputnik Sweetheart
is a novel by Haruki Murakami, published in Japan, by Kodansha, in 1999. An English translation by Philip Gabriel was published in 2001.-Plot summary:The plot features three main characters: Sumire, Miu, and 'K'....

2001

Umibe no Kafuka
2002 Kafka on the Shore
Kafka on the Shore
is a 2002 novel by Japanese author Haruki Murakami. John Updike described it as a "real page-turner, as well as an insistently metaphysical mind-bender"...

2005

Afutā Dāku
2004 After Dark
After Dark (novel)
is a novel by Japanese author Haruki Murakami. It was originally published in 2004.-Plot summary:Alienation, a recurring motif in the works of Murakami, is the central theme in this novel set in metropolitan Tokyo over the course of one night. Main characters include Mari, a 19-year-old student,...

2007
1Q84
Ichi-kyū-hachi-yon
2009 1Q84
1Q84
1Q84 is a novel by Haruki Murakami, first published in three volumes in Japan in 2009–10. The novel quickly became a sensation, with its first printing selling out the day it was released, and reaching sales of one million within a month...

2011

Short stories

Year Japanese Title English Title Appears in
1980
"Chūgoku-yuki no surou bōto"
A Slow Boat to China The Elephant Vanishes
The Elephant Vanishes
The Elephant Vanishes is a collection of short stories by Japanese author Haruki Murakami. The stories were written between 1983 and 1990, and the collection's first English publication was in 1993...


Binbō na obasan no hanashi
A 'Poor Aunt' Story (The New Yorker, December 3, 2001) Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman is a collection of short stories by Japanese author Haruki Murakami....

1981
Nyū Yōku tankō no higeki
New York Mining Disaster (The New Yorker, January 11, 1999)

Supagetī no toshi ni
The Year of Spaghetti (The New Yorker, November 21, 2005)

Shigatsu no aru hareta asa ni 100-paasento no onna no ko ni deau koto ni tsuite
On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning The Elephant Vanishes
The Elephant Vanishes
The Elephant Vanishes is a collection of short stories by Japanese author Haruki Murakami. The stories were written between 1983 and 1990, and the collection's first English publication was in 1993...


Kaitsuburi
Dabchick Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman is a collection of short stories by Japanese author Haruki Murakami....


Kangarū-biyori
A Perfect Day for Kangaroos

Kangarū tsūshin
The Kangaroo Communique The Elephant Vanishes
The Elephant Vanishes
The Elephant Vanishes is a collection of short stories by Japanese author Haruki Murakami. The stories were written between 1983 and 1990, and the collection's first English publication was in 1993...

1982
Gogo no saigo no shibafu
The Last Lawn of the Afternoon
1983
Kagami
The Mirror Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman is a collection of short stories by Japanese author Haruki Murakami....


Tongari-yaki no seisui
The Rise and Fall of Sharpie Cakes

Hotaru
Firefly

Naya wo yaku
Barn Burning (The New Yorker, November 2, 1992) The Elephant Vanishes
The Elephant Vanishes
The Elephant Vanishes is a collection of short stories by Japanese author Haruki Murakami. The stories were written between 1983 and 1990, and the collection's first English publication was in 1993...

1984
Yakyūjō
Crabs Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman is a collection of short stories by Japanese author Haruki Murakami....


Ōto 1979
Nausea 1979

Hantingu naifu
Hunting Knife (The New Yorker, November 17, 2003)

Odoru kobito
The Dancing Dwarf The Elephant Vanishes
The Elephant Vanishes
The Elephant Vanishes is a collection of short stories by Japanese author Haruki Murakami. The stories were written between 1983 and 1990, and the collection's first English publication was in 1993...

1985
Rēdāhōzen
Lederhosen

Panya saishūgeki
The Second Bakery Attack

Zō no shōmetsu
The Elephant Vanishes
The Elephant Vanishes
The Elephant Vanishes is a collection of short stories by Japanese author Haruki Murakami. The stories were written between 1983 and 1990, and the collection's first English publication was in 1993...

(The New Yorker, November 18, 1991)

Famirī afea
A Family Affair
1986
Rōma-teikoku no hōkai・1881-nen no Indian hōki・Hittorā no Pōrando shinnyū・soshite kyōfū sekai
The Fall of the Roman Empire, the 1881 Indian Uprising, Hitler's Invasion of Poland, and the Realm of Raging Winds

Nejimaki-dori to kayōbi no onnatachi
The Wind-up Bird And Tuesday's Women (The New Yorker, November 26, 1990)
1989
Nemuri
Sleep (The New Yorker, March 30, 1992)

TV pīpuru no gyakushū
TV People (The New Yorker, September 10, 1990)

Hikōki-arui wa kare wa ika ni shite shi wo yomu yō ni hitorigoto wo itta ka
Aeroplane: Or, How He Talked to Himself as if Reciting Poetry (The New Yorker, July 1, 2002) Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman is a collection of short stories by Japanese author Haruki Murakami....


Warera no jidai no fōkuroa-kōdo shihonshugi zenshi
A Folklore for My Generation: A Prehistory of Late-Stage Capitalism
1990
Tonī Takitani
Tony Takitani (The New Yorker, April 15, 2002)
1991
Chinmoku
The Silence The Elephant Vanishes
The Elephant Vanishes
The Elephant Vanishes is a collection of short stories by Japanese author Haruki Murakami. The stories were written between 1983 and 1990, and the collection's first English publication was in 1993...


Midori-iro no kemono
The Little Green Monster

Kōri otoko
The Ice Man Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman is a collection of short stories by Japanese author Haruki Murakami....


Hito-kui neko
Man-Eating Cats (The New Yorker, December 4, 2000)
1995
Mekurayanagi to, nemuru onna
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
1996
Nanabanme no otoko
The Seventh Man
1999
UFO ga Kushiro ni oriru
UFO in Kushiro (The New Yorker, March 19, 2001) after the quake
After the quake
is a collection of short stories by Japanese author Haruki Murakami. First published in 2000, it was released in English as after the quake in 2002 .-Background:...


Airon no aru fūkei
Landscape with Flatiron

Kami no kodomotachi wa mina odoru
All God's Children Can Dance

Tairando
Thailand

Kaeru-kun, Tōkyō wo sukuu
Super-Frog Saves Tokyo
2000
Hachimitsu pai
Honey Pie (The New Yorker, August 20, 2001)
2002
Bāsudei gāru
Birthday Girl Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman is a collection of short stories by Japanese author Haruki Murakami....

2005
Gūzen no tabibito
Chance Traveller

Hanarei Bei
Hanalei Bay

Doko de are sore ga mitsukarisō na basho de
Where I'm Likely to Find It (The New Yorker, May 2, 2005)

Hibi idō suru jinzō no katachi wo shita ishi
The Kidney-Shaped Stone That Moves Every Day

Shinagawa saru
A Shinagawa Monkey (The New Yorker, February 13, 2006)
2011  — Town of Cats (Experpt from 1Q84) (The New Yorker, September 5, 2011) http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2011/09/05/110905fi_fiction_murakami?currentPage=all

Essays and nonfiction

English Japanese
Year Title Year Title
N/A Rain, Burning Sun (Come Rain or Come Shine) 1990
"Uten Enten
Uten Enten
is a road essay by Japanese author Haruki Murakami, about his travels in Greece and Turkey. The essays were first published in Japanese in 1990 by shinchosha as two separate volumes, the first volume covering his travels in Greece, and the other his travels in Turkey. A popular edition collecting...

"
N/A Portrait in Jazz 1997
"Pōtoreito in jazu"
2000 Underground
Underground (stories)
is a book by Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami about the 1995 Aum Shinrikyo sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway. Described as a work of "journalistic literature," it collects a series of separate interviews Murakami conducted with 60 victims of the attacks and 8 members of Aum, descriptions of how...

1997–1998
"Andāguraundo"
N/A Portrait in Jazz 2 2001
"Pōtoreito in jazu 2"
2008 What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running is a memoir by Haruki Murakami in which he writes about his interest and participation in long-distance running...

2007
"Hashiru koto ni tsuite kataru toki ni boku no kataru koto"
N/A It Ain't Got that Swing (If It Don't Mean a Thing) 2008
"Imi ga nakereba suingu wa nai"

Translations

  • C. D. B. Bryan
    Courtlandt Bryan
    Courtlandt Dixon Barnes Bryan , better known as C. D. B. Bryan, was an American author and journalist.-Biography:...

     – The Great Dethriffe
  • Truman Capote
    Truman Capote
    Truman Streckfus Persons , known as Truman Capote , was an American author, many of whose short stories, novels, plays, and nonfiction are recognized literary classics, including the novella Breakfast at Tiffany's and the true crime novel In Cold Blood , which he labeled a "nonfiction novel." At...

     – A Christmas Memory
    A Christmas Memory
    "A Christmas Memory" is a short story by Truman Capote. Originally published in Mademoiselle magazine in December 1956, it was reprinted in The Selected Writings of Truman Capote in 1963...

    , One Christmas
    One Christmas
    "One Christmas" is an autobiographical short story by Truman Capote, portions of which were originally published in a 1982 issue of the Ladies’ Home Journal magazine. It was shortly thereafter published in 1983 as a book by Random House, Inc. The story is an emotional childhood tale about the...

    , Breakfast at Tiffany's
    Breakfast at Tiffany's (novella)
    Breakfast at Tiffany's is a novella by Truman Capote published in 1958. The main character, Holly Golightly, is one of Capote's best-known creations and an American cultural icon.-Plot:...

    , I Remember Grandpa, Children on Their Birthdays
    Children on Their Birthdays
    Children on Their Birthdays is a 2002 American independent film directed by Mark Medoff. The screenplay written by Douglas Sloan is based on "Children on Their Birthdays", the short story of the same title by Truman Capote.-Plot:...

  • Raymond Carver
    Raymond Carver
    Raymond Clevie Carver, Jr. was an American short story writer and poet. Carver is considered a major American writer of the late 20th century and also a major force in the revitalization of the short story in the 1980s....

     – All Works of Raymond Carver
  • Raymond Chandler
    Raymond Chandler
    Raymond Thornton Chandler was an American novelist and screenwriter.In 1932, at age forty-five, Raymond Chandler decided to become a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive during the Depression. His first short story, "Blackmailers Don't Shoot", was published in...

     – Farewell, My Lovely
    Farewell, My Lovely
    Farewell, My Lovely is a 1940 novel by Raymond Chandler, the second novel he wrote featuring Los Angeles private eye Philip Marlowe. It was adapted for the screen three times.-Plot summary:...

    , The Long Goodbye
    The Long Goodbye (novel)
    The Long Goodbye is a 1953 novel by Raymond Chandler, centered on his famous detective Philip Marlowe. While some critics consider it inferior to The Big Sleep or Farewell, My Lovely, others rank it as the best of his work...

    ,The Little Sister
    The Little Sister
    The Little Sister is a 1949 novel by Raymond Chandler, the fifth in his popular Philip Marlowe series. The story is set in late 1940s Los Angeles.-Plot summary:...

  • Bill Crow
    Bill Crow
    Bill Crow is an American jazz bassist and author.Crow was born in Othello, Washington in the United States of America, but spent his childhood in Kirkland, Washington. After high school, he briefly played sousaphone at the University of Washington in Seattle...

     – Jazz Anecdotes, From Birdland to Broadway
  • Terry Farish – The Cat Who Liked Potato Soup
  • F. Scott Fitzgerald
    F. Scott Fitzgerald
    Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was an American author of novels and short stories, whose works are the paradigm writings of the Jazz Age, a term he coined himself. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. Fitzgerald is considered a member of the "Lost...

     – My Lost City, The Great Gatsby
    The Great Gatsby
    The Great Gatsby is a novel by the American author F. Scott Fitzgerald. First published in1925, it is set on Long Island's North Shore and in New York City from spring to autumn of 1922....

  • Jim Fusilli – The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds
  • Mikal Gilmore
    Mikal Gilmore
    Mikal Gilmore is an American writer. He was born "Michael Gilmore," but later changed the spelling of his name.-Life & career:Gilmore was born on February 9, 1951 in Portland, Oregon to Frank and Bessie Gilmore....

     – Shot in the Heart
    Shot in the Heart
    Shot in the Heart is a memoir written by Mikal Gilmore, then a senior contributing editor at Rolling Stone, about his tumultuous childhood in a dysfunctional family, and his brother Gary Gilmore's eventual execution by firing squad in 1977 for a convenience store murder he committed in Provo,...

  • Mark Helprin
    Mark Helprin
    Mark Helprin is an American novelist, journalist, and conservative commentator.-Background:Helprin was raised on the Hudson River and in the British West Indies, and holds degrees from Harvard College and Harvard's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. His postgraduate work was done at Princeton...

     – Swan Lake
  • John Irving
    John Irving
    John Winslow Irving is an American novelist and Academy Award-winning screenwriter.Irving achieved critical and popular acclaim after the international success of The World According to Garp in 1978...

     – Setting Free the Bears
    Setting Free the Bears
    Setting Free the Bears is the first novel by American author John Irving, published in 1968 by Random House.Irving studied at the Institute of European Studies in Vienna in 1963 and Bears was written between 1965 and 1967 based largely on Irving’s understanding of the city and its rebellious youth...

  • Ursula K. Le Guin
    Ursula K. Le Guin
    Ursula Kroeber Le Guin is an American author. She has written novels, poetry, children's books, essays, and short stories, notably in fantasy and science fiction...

     – Catwings
    Catwings
    Catwings is a children's book written by American author Ursula K. Le Guin, who is also known for her Earthsea fantasy novels and The Left Hand of Darkness , and illustrated by S. D. Schindler. It is written for children aged 7 to 10...

    , Catwings Return
    Catwings Return
    Catwings Return is a 1989 sequel to the 1988 book Catwings, by Ursula K. Le Guin.- Plot summary:James and Harriet return to the city to find their mother. When they arrive, they find a small black kitten with wings. They gain the kitten's trust and find their mother. The kitten is hers, lost when...

    , Wonderful Alexander and the Catwings, Jane on her Own
  • Tim O'Brien
    Tim O'Brien (author)
    Tim O'Brien is an American novelist who often writes about his experiences in the Vietnam War and the impact the war had on the American servicemen who fought there...

     – The Nuclear Age, The Things They Carried
    The Things They Carried
    The Things They Carried is a collection of related stories by Tim O'Brien, about a platoon of American soldiers in the Vietnam War, originally published in hardcover by Houghton Mifflin, 1990...

    , July, July
    July, July
    July, July is a novel by National Book Award Winner Tim O'Brien, about the 30th reunion of a graduating college class of 1969 that happened a year too late. It's filled with characters bent up by society's pliers, and it constantly flashes back to moments that shaped their lives...

  • Grace Paley
    Grace Paley
    Grace Paley was an American-Jewish short story writer, poet, and political activist.-Biography:Grace Paley was born in the Bronx to Isaac and Manya Ridnyik Goodside, who anglicized the family name from Gutseit on immigrating from Ukraine. Her father was a doctor. The family spoke Russian and...

     – Enormous Changes at the Last Minute, The Little Disturbances of Man
  • J. D. Salinger
    J. D. Salinger
    Jerome David Salinger was an American author, best known for his 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye, as well as his reclusive nature. His last original published work was in 1965; he gave his last interview in 1980....

     – The Catcher in the Rye
    The Catcher in the Rye
    The Catcher in the Rye is a 1951 novel by J. D. Salinger. Originally published for adults, it has since become popular with adolescent readers for its themes of teenage confusion, angst, alienation, language, and rebellion. It has been translated into almost all of the world's major...

  • Shel Silverstein
    Shel Silverstein
    Sheldon Allan "Shel" Silverstein , was an American poet, singer-songwriter, musician, composer, cartoonist, screenwriter and author of children's books. He styled himself as Uncle Shelby in his children's books...

     – The Giving Tree
    The Giving Tree
    The Giving Tree, first published in 1964 by Harper and Row, is a children's book written and illustrated by Shel Silverstein. This book has become one of Silverstein's best known titles and has been translated into more than 30 languages.-Plot:...

  • Mark Strand
    Mark Strand
    Mark Strand is an American poet, essayist, and translator. He was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1990. Since 2005, he has been a professor of English at Columbia University.- Biography :...

     – Mr. and Mrs. Baby and Other Stories
  • Paul Theroux
    Paul Theroux
    Paul Edward Theroux is an American travel writer and novelist, whose best known work of travel writing is perhaps The Great Railway Bazaar . He has also published numerous works of fiction, some of which were made into feature films. He was awarded the 1981 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his...

     – World's End and Other Stories
  • Chris Van Allsburg
    Chris Van Allsburg
    Chris Van Allsburg is an American author and illustrator of children's books. He twice won the Caldecott Medal, for Jumanji and The Polar Express , both of which he wrote and illustrated, and both of which were later adapted into successful motion pictures...

     – The Polar Express
    The Polar Express
    The Polar Express is a 1985 children's book written and illustrated by Chris Van Allsburg, a former professor at the Rhode Island School of Design. It was adapted as an Oscar-nominated motion-capture film in 2004....

    , The Wretched Stone
    The Wretched Stone
    The Wretched Stone is a children's picture book written and illustrated by the American author Chris Van Allsburg.Told from the perspective of Captain Randall Ethan Hope, the crew of the Rita Anne finds a strange, glowing, cubic stone on an exotic island...

    , The Mysteries of Harris Burdick
    The Mysteries of Harris Burdick
    The Mysteries of Harris Burdick is a 1984 picture book by the American author Chris Van Allsburg consisting of a series of unrelated, highly detailed images in the author's distinctive style...

    , Ben's Dream, Two Bad Ants
    Two Bad Ants
    Two Bad Ants is a 1988 children's book written and illustrated by American author Chris Van Allsburg.-Plot summary:The title characters, while journeying through a human home, decide to exploit a sugar bowl on their own rather than delivering the crystals to the colony's queen...

    , The Sweetest Fig
    The Sweetest Fig
    The Sweetest Fig is a children's fantasy novel written in 1993 by the American author Chris Van Allsburg. It tells the dark, unsettling story of an affluent, cold-hearted French dentist who eats a fig that makes his wildest dreams come true....

    , The Window's Broom, The Stranger
    The Stranger (Chris Van Allsburg book)
    The Stranger is a children's written in 1986 by the American author Chris Van Allsburg. It tells a story of a stranger with no memory of who he is or where he's from. He recuperates in the home of a farmer and his family during the fall season.-Plot:...

    , The Wreck of the Zephyer, The Garden of Abdul Gasazi
    The Garden of Abdul Gasazi
    The Garden of Abdul Gasazi is a best-selling children's picture book written in 1979 by the American author Chris Van Allsburg...


Translators of Murakami's works


Murakami's works have been translated into many languages. Below is a list of translators according to language (by alphabetical order):
  • Albanian
    Albanian language
    Albanian is an Indo-European language spoken by approximately 7.6 million people, primarily in Albania and Kosovo but also in other areas of the Balkans in which there is an Albanian population, including western Macedonia, southern Montenegro, southern Serbia and northwestern Greece...

     – Etta Klosi
  • Arabic – Saeed Alganmi, Iman Harrz Allah
  • Armenian
    Armenian language
    The Armenian language is an Indo-European language spoken by the Armenian people. It is the official language of the Republic of Armenia as well as in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The language is also widely spoken by Armenian communities in the Armenian diaspora...

     – Alexander Aghabekyan
  • Basque
    Basque language
    Basque is the ancestral language of the Basque people, who inhabit the Basque Country, a region spanning an area in northeastern Spain and southwestern France. It is spoken by 25.7% of Basques in all territories...

     – Ibon Uribarri
  • Brazilian Portuguese
    Brazilian Portuguese
    Brazilian Portuguese is a group of Portuguese dialects written and spoken by most of the 190 million inhabitants of Brazil and by a few million Brazilian emigrants, mainly in the United States, United Kingdom, Portugal, Canada, Japan and Paraguay....

     – Ana Luiza Dantas Borges
  • Bulgarian
    Bulgarian language
    Bulgarian is an Indo-European language, a member of the Slavic linguistic group.Bulgarian, along with the closely related Macedonian language, demonstrates several linguistic characteristics that set it apart from all other Slavic languages such as the elimination of case declension, the...

     – Ljudmil Ljutskanov
  • Catalan
    Catalan language
    Catalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...

     – Albert Nolla, Concepció Iribarren, Imma Estany, Jordi Mas
  • Chinese
    Chinese language
    The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...

     – 賴明珠/Lai Ming-zhu (Taiwan), 林少华/Lin Shao-hua (Chinese Mainland), 葉惠/Ye Hui (Hong Kong)
  • Croatian
    Croatian language
    Croatian is the collective name for the standard language and dialects spoken by Croats, principally in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serbian province of Vojvodina and other neighbouring countries...

     – Maja Šoljan, Vojo Šindolić, Mate Maras, Maja Tančik, Dinko Telećan
  • Czech
    Czech language
    Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...

     – Tomáš Jurkovič
  • Danish
    Danish language
    Danish is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in the country of Denmark. It is also spoken by 50,000 Germans of Danish ethnicity in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where it holds the status of minority language...

     – Mette Holm
  • Dutch
    Dutch language
    Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...

     – Elbrich Fennema, Jacques Westerhoven, L. van Haute
  • English
    English language
    English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

     – Alfred Birnbaum
    Alfred Birnbaum
    Alfred Birnbaum is an American translator.Alfred Birnbaum was born in the United States and raised in Japan from age five. He studied at Waseda University, Tokyo, under a Japanese Ministry of Education scholarship, and has been a freelance literary and cultural translator since 1980.From March...

    , Jay Rubin
    Jay Rubin
    Jay Rubin is an American academic and translator. He is most notable for being one of the main translators into English of the works of the Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami. He has also written a guide to Japanese, Making Sense of Japanese , and a biographical literary analysis of Murakami.He has...

    , Philip Gabriel
    Philip Gabriel
    J. Philip Gabriel is a full professor and department chair of the University of Arizona's Department of East Asian Studies and is one of the major translators into English of the works of the Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami....

    , Hideo Levy
    Hideo Levy
    is an American-born Japanese Language author. He was born in California and educated in Taiwan, America, and Japan.He gained attention in Japan for his work Seijōki no Kikoenai Heya published in 1992, which won the Noma Literary Award for New Writers. He is one of the first Americans to write...

     (USA), Theodore W. Goossen (Canada)
  • Estonian
    Estonian language
    Estonian is the official language of Estonia, spoken by about 1.1 million people in Estonia and tens of thousands in various émigré communities...

     – Kati Lindström, Kristina Uluots
  • Faroese
    Faroese language
    Faroese , is an Insular Nordic language spoken by 48,000 people in the Faroe Islands and about 25,000 Faroese people in Denmark and elsewhere...

     – Pauli Nielsen
  • Finnish
    Finnish language
    Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...

     – Leena Tamminen, Ilkka Malinen, Juhani Lindholm
  • French
    French language
    French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

     – Corinne Atlan, Hélène Morita, Patrick De Vos, Véronique Brindeau, Karine Chesneau
  • Galician
    Galician language
    Galician is a language of the Western Ibero-Romance branch, spoken in Galicia, an autonomous community located in northwestern Spain, where it is co-official with Castilian Spanish, as well as in border zones of the neighbouring territories of Asturias and Castile and León.Modern Galician and...

     – Mona Imai, Gabriel Álvarez Martínez
  • Georgian
    Georgian language
    Georgian is the native language of the Georgians and the official language of Georgia, a country in the Caucasus.Georgian is the primary language of about 4 million people in Georgia itself, and of another 500,000 abroad...

     – Irakli Beriashvili
  • German
    German language
    German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

     – Ursula Gräfe, Nora Bierich, Sabine Mangold, Jürgen Stalph, Annelie Ortmanns
  • Greek
    Greek language
    Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

     – Maria Aggelidou, Thanasis Douvris, Leonidas Karatzas, Juri Kovalenko, Stelios Papazafeiropoulos, Giorgos Voudiklaris
  • Hebrew
    Hebrew language
    Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...

     – Einat Cooper, Dr. Michal Daliot-Bul, Yonatan Friedman
  • Hungarian
    Hungarian language
    Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....

     – Erdős György, Horváth Kriszta, Komáromy Rudolf
  • Icelandic
    Icelandic language
    Icelandic is a North Germanic language, the main language of Iceland. Its closest relative is Faroese.Icelandic is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic or Nordic branch of the Germanic languages. Historically, it was the westernmost of the Indo-European languages prior to the...

     – Uggi Jónsson
  • Indonesian
    Indonesian language
    Indonesian is the official language of Indonesia. Indonesian is a normative form of the Riau Islands dialect of Malay, an Austronesian language which has been used as a lingua franca in the Indonesian archipelago for centuries....

     – Jonjon Johana
  • Italian
    Italian language
    Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...

     – Giorgio Amitrano, Antonietta Pastore
  • Korean
    Korean language
    Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...

     – Kim Choon-Mie
    Kim Choon-Mie
    Kim Choon-Mie in is a Korean academic and Japanologist, honored by the government of Japan for having "Contributed to the introduction of Japanese literature and the promotion of Japanese languageeducation."...

    , Kim Nanjoo
  • Latvian
    Latvian language
    Latvian is the official state language of Latvia. It is also sometimes referred to as Lettish. There are about 1.4 million native Latvian speakers in Latvia and about 150,000 abroad. The Latvian language has a relatively large number of non-native speakers, atypical for a small language...

     – Ingūna Beķere
  • Lithuanian
    Lithuanian language
    Lithuanian is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognized as one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.96 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania and about 170,000 abroad. Lithuanian is a Baltic language, closely related to Latvian, although they...

     – Milda Dyke, Irena Jomantienė, Jūratė Nauronaitė, Marius Daškus, Dalia Saukaitytė, Ieva Stasiūnaitė, Ieva Susnytė
  • Norwegian
    Norwegian language
    Norwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants .These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language...

     – Ika Kaminka, Kari and Kjell Risvik
  • Persian
    Persian language
    Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...

     – Gita Garakani, Mehdi Ghobarayi, Bozorgmehr Sharafoddin
  • Polish
    Polish language
    Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...

     – Anna Zielinska-Elliott
  • Portuguese
    Portuguese language
    Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...

     – Maria João Lourenço, Leiko Gotoda
  • Romanian
    Romanian language
    Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...

     – Angela Hondru, Silvia Cercheaza, Andreea Sion, Iuliana Tomescu
  • Russian
    Russian language
    Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...

     – Dmitry V. Kovalenin, Ivan Sergeevich Logatchev, Sergey Ivanovich Logatchev, Anatoly Lyan
  • Serbian
    Serbian language
    Serbian is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Serbs in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and neighbouring countries....

     – Nataša Tomić, Divna Tomić
  • Slovak
    Slovak language
    Slovak , is an Indo-European language that belongs to the West Slavic languages .Slovak is the official language of Slovakia, where it is spoken by 5 million people...

     – Lucia Kružlíková
  • Slovene – Nika Cejan, Aleksander Mermal
  • Spanish
    Spanish language
    Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

     – Lourdes Porta, Junichi Matsuura, Fernando Rodríguez-Izquierdo, Francisco Barberán
  • Swedish
    Swedish language
    Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...

     – Yukiko Duke, Eiko Duke, Vibeke Emond
  • Thai
    Thai language
    Thai , also known as Central Thai and Siamese, is the national and official language of Thailand and the native language of the Thai people, Thailand's dominant ethnic group. Thai is a member of the Tai group of the Tai–Kadai language family. Historical linguists have been unable to definitively...

     – Noppadol Vatsawat, Komsan Nantachit, Tomorn Sukprecha
  • Turkish
    Turkish language
    Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...

     – Pınar Polat, Nihal Önol, Hüseyin Can Erkin
  • Ukrainian
    Ukrainian language
    Ukrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet....

     – Ivan Dziub, Oleksandr Bibko
  • Vietnamese
    Vietnamese language
    Vietnamese is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 86% of Vietnam's population, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese. It is also spoken as a second language by many ethnic minorities of Vietnam...

     – Trinh Lu, Tran Tien Cao Dang, Duong Tuong, Cao Viet Dung, Pham Xuan Nguyen

Further reading

  • Pintor, Ivan. "David Lynch y Haruki Murakami, la llama en el umbral," in: VV.AA., Universo Lynch. Internacional Sitges Film Festival-Calamar, 2007 (ISBN 84-96235-16-5)
  • Rubin, Jay. Haruki Murakami and the Music of Words. Harvill Press, 2002 (ISBN 1-86046-952-3)
  • Strecher, Matthew Carl. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle Readers Guide. Continuum Pub Group, 2002 (ISBN 0-8264-5239-6)
  • Strecher, Matthew Carl. Dances with Sheep: The Quest for Identity in the Fiction of Murakami Haruki. University of Michigan/Monographs in Japanese Studies, 2001. (ISBN 1-929280-07-6)
  • Suter, Rebecca. The Japanization of Modernity: Murakami Haruki Between Japan and the United States. Harvard University Asian Center, 2008. (ISBN 978-0-674-02833-3)

External links