Haruki Murakami

Haruki Murakami (村上 春樹, Murakami Haruki^?) (Kyoto, January 12, 1949) is a Japanese writer and translator, author of novels, short stories and essays. His books have generated positive reviews and won numerous awards, including the Franz Kafka (2006), the World Fantasy (2006), the Jerusalem (2009) and the Hans Christian Andersen for Literature (2016). Translated into fifty languages and sometimes criticized by the Japanese literary establishment as non-Japanese, his work is influenced by surrealism and focuses on themes such as loneliness and alienation. He is considered an important figure in postmodern literature. The Guardian has ranked Murakami "among the greatest novelists of today". He has been considered a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature on several occasions, without having won the award so far.

Biography

Although he was born in Kyoto, he lived most of his youth in Hyogo. His father was the son of a Buddhist priest and his mother of an Osaka merchant. Both taught Japanese literature.

From his youth, Murakami was greatly influenced by Western culture, in particular, by music and literature. He grew up reading numerous works by American authors, such as Kurt Vonnegut and Richard Brautigan. It is these Western influences that often set Murakami apart from other Japanese writers.

He studied Greek literature and drama at Waseda University (Soudai), where he met his wife, Yoko. Although she was just in college, she worked at a record store in Shinjuku (just like one of her main characters, Toru Watanabe from Norwegian Wood) and spent a lot of time in jazz in Kabukicho, Shinjuku. Before finishing his studies, Murakami opened the jazz bar Peter Cat ('Peter Cat') in Kokubunji, Tokyo, which he ran with his wife from 1974 to 1981. she decided not to have children in part because "I don't have the confidence, which my parents' generation had after the war, that the world would continue to improve." It should be noted that the surname Murakami is a fairly widespread surname in Japan, originating from several samurai clans.

Career as a writer

In 1988, with the enormous success of his novel Norwegian Wood (Tokyo blues), he left Japan to live in Europe and the United States, but returned to Japan in 1995, after the Kobe earthquake and the sarin gas terrorist attack that the Japanese sect Supreme Truth perpetrated on the Tokyo subway. Murakami would later write about both events.

Murakami's fiction, which is often dismissed as pop literature in Japan, is humorous and surreal, while at the same time reflecting loneliness and the longing for love in a way that touches both Eastern and Western readers. She draws a world of permanent oscillations, between the real and the dreamlike, between joy and darkness. It is worth noting the influence of the authors he has translated, such as Raymond Carver, F. Scott Fitzgerald or John Irving, whom he considers his teachers.

Many of his novels also have themes and titles referring to a particular song such as Dance, Dance, Dance (by The Dells), Norwegian Wood (the Beatles), and South of the Border, West of the Sun (the first part is the title of a Nat King Cole song). This hobby, music, runs through all his work.

Murakami is a sports fan, participating in marathons and triathlons, though he didn't start running until he was 33. On June 23, 1996, he completed his first ultramarathon, a 100-kilometer race around Lake Saroma in Hokkaido, Japan. He addresses his relationship with sport in What I Talk About When I Talk About Running (2008).

At the end of 2005, Murakami published the collection of short stories Tōkyō Kitanshū, freely translated as Tokyo Mysteries. He later edited an anthology of stories called Birthday Stories , which includes texts by English-speaking writers, as well as one of his own prepared especially for this book.

In 2023, it was announced that a new novel will be published on April 13.

Work

Novels

Collections of short stories

Essays

• Underground (1997-1998), Tusquets, 2014
• Portrait in jazz (1997), not published in Spanish
• Portrait in jazz 2 (2001), not published in Spanish
• What do I talk about when I talk about running (2007), Tusquets, 2010
• What do I talk about when I talk about writing (testing to the question of knowing what to do, Novelist as a profession, 2015), Tusquets, 2017

Others

• Yes: Let's ask Mr. Murakami (interpretation from miracles):, 2000), not published in Spanish. 282 questions and answers.
• The place of Murakami (hoped to speak in Spanish). Compilation of 473 questions from Murakami readers and their respective responses on the internet site launched for that end from 15 January to 13 May 2015. The electronic version of the book includes 3716 questions.

Illustrated stories

• Dream (1990), translated into Spanish by Lourdes Porta and illustrated by Kat Menschik. Published by Red Fox Books in 2013. Record included in the collection The elephant disappears.
• The secret library (1990), translated into Spanish by Lourdes Porta and illustrated by Kat Menschik. Published by Red Fox Books in 2014. Report not included in the four collections of stories published by Murakami.
• Assault on bakery (1990), translated into Spanish by Lourdes Porta and illustrated by Kat Menschik. Published by Red Fox Books in 2015. It includes two stories: "Save the bakery" and "Save the bakery again." The latter, translated as "New Attack on Bakery", is included in the collection The elephant disappears.
• The birthday girl (2002), translated into Spanish by Lourdes Porta and illustrated by Kat Menschik. Published as an independent volume by Tusquets in 2018. The story was previously included in the volume Blind, sleeping woman (2008).
• Tony Takitani (1990). Translated to Spanish by Lourdes Porta and illustrated by Ignasi Font. Published as an independent volume by Tusquets in 2019. Previous account included in Blind, sleeping woman (2008).

Dialogue

• Wooku Donto Ran (Walk, Don't Run, 1981). With Ryu Murakami.
• Haruki Murakami Goes to Meet Hayao Kawai (faith flare, 1996).
• MusicJust music. Conversations with Seiji Ozawa (2011). Tusquets, 2020. Translation by Fernando Cordobés and Yoko Ogihara.

Interviews

• "We Japanese" (2004). Selection of the answers Murakami gave to John Wry in his interview The Paris Review 182.
• "I write strange things, very rare" (2007). By Juana Libedinsky for La Nación.
• "My books triumph in chaos" (2009). By Jesus Ruiz Mantilla for El País.
• "Haruki Murakami. Background Corridor" (2009). By David Morán Rockdelux.
• "Haruki Murakami" (2011). By Martin Oehlen and Sabine Vogel The Cultural.
• "Murakami: he is a Nobel candidate but he feels like an ugly duck" (2014). For Steven Poole The Guardian.
• "Murakami, the writer who will continue to run for the Literature Nobel Prize" (2014). For Xavi Ayén The two shores.
• "Doctor Murakami, do you hear me?" (2015). For Xavi Ayén The Vanguard.
• "I like to iron" (2018). For Sarah Lyall The New York Times.
• "I am a fan of the literature of Gabriel García Márquez" (2018). By Gabriel Flores for Trade.
• "The work of a novelist is to dream awake" (2019). For Raquel Garzón Weekly Country.
• "Put in the dark: interview with Haruki Murakami" (2022). For Xavi Ayén Confabulary.