Murakami’s Lecture in Wellesley

On sale today, the July issue of Shincho Magazine features a transcript of the lecture given by Haruki Murakami at Wellesley College, USA, on 27 April, entitled ‘Writing Fiction in the Time Of Pandemic and War’.

In it, Murakami introduces The City and Its Uncertain Walls, which was published in Japan in April and will probably be translated into English sometime next year, and said that he originally started writing the book in the early stages of the pandemic, in March 2020, based on a novella he wrote 40 years ago, and that war broke out in Ukraine while he was writing it.

He then described the two worlds in which the novel’s protagonist travels and the existence of the walls, and that “this tale fits perfectly with the age we live in now”. He then expressed the hope that the novel would contribute to a deep investigation that would take time rather than an instant answer.

The magazine is only available in paper form. However, as the lecture was given in English, and unusually for a Japanese literary magazine, the transcript is included in both Japanese and English. So presumably the foreign media will soon be getting the licence to publish it.

May the translation of The City and Its Uncertain Walls, a profound, witty, homage-filled and beautifully evocative novel, be completed soon and reach people worldwide shortly.