On 15 December 2022, a new Murakami book, ‘More, My Good Old Classical Records’ was published in Japan. It is an essay book on his classical music record collection and a sequel to “My Good Old Classical Records,” published last year. In the preface, Murakami wrote that this book was neither a guidebook nor an […]
In October 2022, Laura Wilson published a book, “The Writers: Portraits”, which includes photographs of 38 authors from around the world, including Haruki Murakami, According to Murakami’s recent interview, he went to Hawaii in February this year for the first time after the pandemic. He stayed there for three-four weeks (and listened to the news […]
Murakami’s latest book is ” My Good Old Classical Records “, released on 24 June 2021 in Japan. Murakami, known as a jazz record collector and for his deep knowledge of classical records, introduced 486 LP records in this book, covering 100 chapters; some are categorized by music, while some are by a conductor. Murakami […]
In 1974, at the age of 25, Haruki Murakami and his wife Yoko opened a jazz café, Peter Cat, in Kokubunji. At this point in his life, Murakami had not written a novel. No one could have predicted that this unspectacular town would become the setting for a popular novel that has sold 12 million […]
Music takes an important role in Murakami’ life and novels. Last week, Murakami gave an interview on Shukan Asahi Magazine and said “This is a difficult time, as the world faces the pandemic. However, at any time, people need something they can enjoy.” and noticed that he would host a live radio show on this […]
In 2020, Murakami published five books in Japan; two essays, one short stories collection and two translations. Considering his age of 71, he is impressively productive. He also saved the readers and the book industries at the time of pandemic by the way that only he could do in 2020; he published the five books […]
Death was not the opposite of life. It was already here, within my being, it had always been here, and no struggle would permit me to forget that. (Norwegian Wood, Ch.2) A year ago, when Waseda University announced that it was setting up a new library to house Haruki Murakami’s archives, and that Murakami would […]
Read Carson McCullers’ “The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (published in 1940)” translated by Haruki Murakami this year and impressed not only the way Murakami translated but the findings on the interaction among the literary works and the reality beyond the place, language and time. The problems and sufferings that the characters faced in the […]
This is a nonfiction story of a venture of the team of translators, editors, agents, and designers who successfully brought Murakami’s novels to the western countries in 1980/90s. Birnbaum was immediately drawn to Murakami’s writing, especially its humor, something he found to be rare in Japanese literature.19 As soon as he finished reading the stories, […]
Like many other parts of the world, Covid-19 significantly affected the lives of the people in Japan. Although bookstores were excluded from the shutdown list, during the state of the emergency period from April 9 to May 25, all the business in town were heavily damaged and have not yet recovered until now. For small […]