Murakami was born in
Kyoto in 1949 but spent most of his youth in
Kobe.
[2] His father was the son of a
Buddhist priest.
[3] His mother was the daughter of an
Osaka merchant.[
citation needed] Both taught
Japanese literature.
[4]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 and
Richard Brautigan, and he is often distinguished from other Japanese writers for his Western influences.
[5]Murakami studied theater arts at
Waseda University in
Tokyo.
[6] His first job was in a record store (which is where one of his main characters, Toru Watanabe in Norwegian Wood, works). Shortly before finishing his studies, Murakami opened the
coffeehouse (
jazz bar, in the evening) "Peter Cat" in
Kokubunji, Tokyo with his wife, Yoko.
[7] They ran the bar from 1974 until 1982.[
citation needed] Many of his novels have musical themes and titles referring to classical music, for example, the three books comprising
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle:
The Thieving Magpie (after
Rossini's orchestral overture), Bird as Prophet (after a piano piece by
Robert Schumann), and The Bird-Catcher (a protagonist in
Mozart's opera
The Magic Flute). Some of his novels take their titles from songs:
Dance, Dance, Dance (from
The Beach Boys),
Norwegian Wood (after the
Beatles'
song) and
South of the Border, West of the Sun (the first part being the title of a song by
Nat King Cole).
[8]Murakami is a keen marathon runner. On
June 23,
1996, Murakami completed his first and only "
ultramarathon" — a 100 km race around Lake Saroma, Hokkaido, Japan.
[9]"Trilogy of the Rat"
Murakami wrote his first fiction when he was 29.
[10] He said he was suddenly and inexplicably inspired to write his first novel (Hear the Wind Sing, 1979) while watching a baseball game.
[11] In 1978, Murakami was in
Jingu Stadium 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.
[12] 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 (resulting in a fragmented, jumpy text in short chapters). After finishing, he sent his novel to the only literary contest that would accept a work of that length, and won first prize. Even in this first work, many of the basic elements of Murakami's mature writing are in place: Westernized style, idiosyncratic humor, and poignant nostalgia.
His initial success with
Hear the Wind Sing encouraged him to keep writing. A year later he published
Pinball, 1973, a sequel. In 1982 he published
A Wild Sheep Chase, a critical success, which makes original use of fantastic elements and has a uniquely disconnected plot. Hear the Wind Sing, Pinball, 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". However, the first two novels are unpublished in English translation outside Japan, where an English edition with extensive translation notes was published as part of a series intended for English students. According to Murakami (Publishers Weekly, 1991), he considers his first two novels "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 recognitionIn 1985 Murakami wrote
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, a dreamlike fantasy which 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, a nostalgic story of loss and sexuality. It sold millions of copies among Japanese youth, making Murakami something of a superstar in his native country (to his dismay). The book was printed in two separate volumes, sold together, so that the number of books sold was actually doubled, since the entire book was released in two separate books, creating the million-copy bestseller hype. One book had a green cover, the other a red one. In
1986, Murakami left
Japan, traveled throughout
Europe, and settled in the
United States.
The Wind-up Bird Chronicle (1992), 1999 Vintage paperback edition
Murakami was a writing fellow at
Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey, and at
Tufts University in
Medford, Massachusetts.
[2] During this time he wrote South of the Border, West of the Sun and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.
[2]An established novelistIn 1994/1995 he published
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. This novel fuses his 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
Manchuria (
Manchukuo). The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is frequently cited by critics as Murakami's best work.[
citation needed] It won him the
Yomiuri Prize, awarded to him by one of his harshest former critics,
Kenzaburo Oe, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1994.
[13]The processing of collective
trauma soon took a central position 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, in the aftermath of which he returned to
Japan. He came to terms with these events with his first work of non-fiction,
Underground, and the short story collection
after the quake. Underground consists largely of interviews of victims of the sarin gas attacks in the Tokyo subway system. While perpetrators and events behind the attack are not the focus of the book, the picture of Japanese society that Murakami paints is shocking.
English translations of many of his short stories written between 1983 and 1990 have been collected in
The Elephant Vanishes. He has also translated many of the works of
F. Scott Fitzgerald,
Raymond Carver,
Truman Capote,
John Irving, and
Paul Theroux, among others, into Japanese.
[2]In 2006, Murakami became the sixth recipient of the
Franz Kafka Prize from the
Czech Republic for his novel Umibe no Kafka (
Kafka on the Shore).
[14] Murakami told reporters, "In a way, reading
Franz Kafka's works served as a starting point for me as a novelist."[
citation needed]
In September 2007, he received an honorary doctorate from the
University of Liège,
[15] and in 2008 he received another from
Princeton University.
[16]Recent workThe succinct
Sputnik Sweetheart was first published in
1999.
Kafka on the Shore was published in
2002, with the English translation following in
2005. The English version of his latest novel,
After Dark, 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 (東京奇譚集, translates loosely as "Mysteries of Tokyo"). A collection of the English versions of 24 short stories, titled
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, 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 has recently published an
anthology called
Birthday Stories, which collects
short stories on the theme of
birthdays by
Russell Banks,
Ethan Canin,
Raymond Carver,
David Foster Wallace,
Denis Johnson,
Claire Keegan,
Andrea Lee,
Daniel Lyons,
Lynda Sexson,
Paul Theroux, and
William Trevor, as well as a specially written story by Murakami himself.
A new book of essays titled What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, featuring tales about his experience as a full marathon runner and a triathlete, has been published in Japan
[17], with English translations released in the U.K. and the U.S. This title comes from
Raymond Carver's collection of short stories,
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.
Criticism and influenceMurakami's fiction, often criticized for being "pop" literature by
Japan's literary establishment, is humorous and surreal, and at the same time digresses on themes of
alienation, loneliness, and longing for love. In addition, Murakami's writing has also been criticized because of his portrayal of Japan's obsession with capitalism.[
citation needed] Through his work, he was able to capture the spiritual emptiness of his generation and explore the negative effects of Japan's work-dominated mentality. His writing criticizes the decrease in human values and a loss of connection between people in Japan's society.
Murakami was awarded the 2007
Kiriyama Prize for Fiction for his collection of short stories
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman but, according to the Kiriyama Official Website, Murakami "declined to accept the award for reasons of personal principle".
[18]Murakami was mistakenly congratulated for receiving the
Nobel Prize in Literature 2006 on the homepage of a city library in his native Ashiya, but this was the library's error.
[13]Films and other adaptationsMurakami's first novel
Hear the Wind Sing (Kaze no uta o kike) was adapted by Japanese director
Kazuki Ōmori. The film was released in 1981 and distributed by
Art Theatre Guild.
[19]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 Attack on the Bakery and On Seeing the 100% Perfect Woman One Beautiful April Morning respectively.
[20]Japanese director
Jun Ichikawa has adapted Murakami's short story
Tony Takitani into a 75 minute feature.
[21] The film has 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) is available in the
April 15,
2002, issue of
The New Yorker, as a stand-alone book published by
Cloverfield Press, and part of
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman 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 its three intersecting story lines.
Murakami's work has also been adapted for the stage, in a 2003 play entitled
The Elephant Vanishes, co-produced by Britain's
Complicite company and Japan's
Setagaya Public Theatre. The production, directed by
Simon McBurney, adapted three of Murakami's short stories and received acclaim for its unique blending of multimedia (video, music, and innovative sound design) with actor-driven physical theatre (mime, dance, and even acrobatic wirework).
[22] On tour, the play was performed in Japanese, with translating supertitles for European and American audiences.
Two stories—Honey Pie and Superfrog Saves Tokyo— from Murakami's book after the quake 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, and opened
October 12,
2007 at Berkeley Repertory Theatre.
[23]On
Max Richter's 2006 album Songs from Before,
Robert Wyatt reads passages from Murakami's novels.
In 2007, Robert Logevall adapted All God's Children Can Dance into a film, with a specially composed soundtrack by American jam band
Sound Tribe Sector 9.
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. The film can be viewed, voted, and commented upon as part of the Audience award for the movie festival.
[24]It was announced in July 2008 that French-Vietnamese film-maker
Tran Anh Hung would direct an adaptation of Murakami's novel
Norwegian Wood. The film will be released in 2010.
[25]BibliographyNovels
English
Japanese
Year
Title
Year
Title
1987
Hear the Wind Sing1979風の歌を聴けKaze no uta o kike
1985
Pinball, 197319801973年のピンボール1973-nen no pinbōru
1989
A Wild Sheep Chase1982羊をめぐる冒険Hitsuji o meguru bōken
1991
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World1985世界の終りとハードボイルド・ワンダーランドSekai no owari to hādoboirudo wandārando
2000
Norwegian Wood1987ノルウェイの森Noruwei no mori
1994
Dance Dance Dance1988ダンス・ダンス・ダンスDansu dansu dansu
2000
South of the Border, West of the Sun1992国境の南、太陽の西Kokkyō no minami, taiyō no nishi
1997
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle1992-
1995ねじまき鳥クロニクルNejimaki-dori kuronikuru
2001
Sputnik Sweetheart1999スプートニクの恋人Supūtoniku no koibito
2005
Kafka on the Shore2002海辺のカフカUmibe no Kafuka
2007
After Dark2004アフターダークAfutā Dāku
Strange Tales from Tokyo
2005東京奇譚集Tōkyō Kitanshū
Selected short stories
Year
Japanese Title
English Title
Appears in
1980中国行きのスロウ・ボート"Chūgoku-yuki no surou bōto"
"A Slow Boat to China"
The Elephant Vanishes貧乏な叔母さんの話"Binbō na obasan no hanashi"
"A 'Poor Aunt' Story"
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman1981ニューヨーク炭鉱の悲劇"Nyū Yōku tankō no higeki"
"New York Mining Disaster"
スパゲティーの年に"Supagetī no toshi ni"
"The Year of Spaghetti"
四月のある晴れた朝に100パーセントの女の子に出会うことについて"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
かいつぶり"Kaitsuburi"
"Dabchick"
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
カンガルー日和"Kangarū-biyori"
"A Perfect Day for Kangaroos"
カンガルー通信"Kangarū tsūshin"
"The Kangaroo Communique"
The Elephant Vanishes
1982午後の最後の芝生"Gogo no saigo no shibafu"
"The Last Lawn of the Afternoon"
1983鏡"Kagami"
"The Mirror"
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
とんがり焼の盛衰"Tongari-yaki no seisui"
"The Rise and Fall of Sharpie Cakes"
螢"Hotaru"
"Firefly"
納屋を焼く"Naya wo yaku"
"Barn Burning"
The Elephant Vanishes
1984野球場"Yakyūjō"
"Crabs"
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
嘔吐1979"Ōto 1979"
"Nausea 1979"
ハンティング・ナイフ"Hantingu naifu"
"Hunting Knife"
踊る小人"Odoru kobito"
"The Dancing Dwarf"
The Elephant Vanishes
1985レーダーホーゼン"Rēdāhōzen"
"Lederhosen"
パン屋再襲撃"Panya saishūgeki"
"The Second Bakery Attack"
象の消滅"Zō no shōmetsu"
"The Elephant Vanishes"
ファミリー・アフェア"Famirī afea"
"A Family Affair"
1986ローマ帝国の崩壊・一八八一年のインディアン蜂起・ヒットラーのポーランド侵入・そして強風世界"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"
ねじまき鳥と火曜日の女たち"Nejimaki-dori to kayōbi no onnatachi"
"The Wind-up Bird And Tuesday's Women"
1989眠り"Nemuri"
"Sleep"
TVピープルの逆襲"TV pīpuru no gyakushū"
"TV People"
飛行機―あるいは彼はいかにして詩を読むようにひとりごとを言ったか"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"
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
我らの時代のフォークロア―高度資本主義前史"Warera no jidai no fōkuroa-kōdo shihonshugi zenshi"
"A Folklore for My Generation: A Prehistory of Late-Stage Capitalism"
1990トニー滝谷"Tonī Takitani"
"Tony Takitani"
1991沈黙"Chinmoku"
"The Silence"
The Elephant Vanishes
緑色の獣"Midori-iro no kemono"
"The Little Green Monster"
氷男"Kōri otoko"
"The Ice Man"
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
人喰い猫"Hito-kui neko"
"Man-Eating Cats"
1995めくらやなぎと、眠る女"Mekurayanagi to, nemuru onna"
"Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman"
1996七番目の男"Nanabanme no otoko"
"The Seventh Man"
1999UFOが釧路に降りる"UFO ga kushiro ni oriru"
"UFO in Kushiro"
after the quakeアイロンのある風景"Airon no aru fūkei"
"Landscape with Flatiron"
神の子どもたちはみな踊る"Kami no kodomotachi wa mina odoru"
"All God's Children Can Dance"
タイランド"Tairando"
"Thailand"
かえるくん、東京を救う"Kaeru-kun, Tōkyō wo sukū"
"Super-Frog Saves Tokyo"
2000蜂蜜パイ"Hachimitsu pai"
"Honey Pie"
2002バースデイ・ガール"Bāsudei gāru"
"Birthday Girl"
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
2005偶然の旅人"Gūzen no tabibito"
"Chance Traveller"
ハナレイ・ベイ"Hanarei Bei"
"Hanalei Bay"
どこであれそれが見つかりそうな場所で"Doko de are sore ga mitsukarisō na basho de"
"Where I'm Likely to Find It"
日々移動する腎臓のかたちをした石"Hibi idō suru jinzō no katachi wo shita ishi"
"The Kidney-Shaped Stone That Moves Every Day"
品川猿"Shinagawa saru"
"A Shinagawa Monkey"
Other Work
English
Japanese
Year
Title
Year
Title
2000Underground (journalism)
1997-
1998アンダーグラウン
2008What I Talk About When I Talk About Running (memoir)
2009Murakami Diary 2009 (diary)
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mbogia.
