Mieko Kawakami is an Akutagawa Prize-winning novelist. When she was 19, she worked at a bookshop and attended Murakami’s charity public reading for the quake victims in Kobe; after some years, she became an author. In 2017, she interviewed Murakami on Killing Commendatore, his creativeness, memories, fame, daily life, and the next world. Some of […]
Today’s lunchtime reading is a Japanese short stories collection curated by Jay Rubin and introduced by Haruki Murakami. My situation is a bit twisted; this book was originally published in English and I am reading the original texts of those short stories which had been translated to English in the original edition of this book. […]
Theatrical adoption of After the Quake is starting end of this month in Tokyo. Katsumi Kiba plays Mr Frog this time several years after he had performed Nakata in KoS. I wonder if both characters have a similar mission to save the world to some extent.
Lunchtime reads of Murakami’s new short stories released this week: With the Beatles; Yakult Swallows Poems. It is sometimes difficult for a 70 years old man to write his young days’ memories without annoying nostalgia for younger readers. However, Murakami did a good job (as always) by writing it with tracing the edge of fictional/true […]
Frog amulet for “come-back-safe” can be purchased at Kanda Myojin, the shrine for the tutelary deity of Tokyo. “You said before that you have come here to save Tokyo from destruction?” “That is what I said.” “What kind of destruction?” “Earthquake,” Frog said with the utmost gravity. (Super-Frog Saves Tokyo, 1999) As both toads and […]
The interview on the recent Mainichi Shimbun Newspaper is displayed in the window at this beautiful bookshop beloved by the author.
Everything was proceeding according to the most intricate plans. That’s advanced capitalism for you (Dance Dance Dance Ch.7) On August 30, when Murakami was nominated for the new literary prize, the stock price of Bunkyodo, one of the largest bookstore chain in Japan jumped 15%. Yesterday, on the first trading day after Murakami’s withdrawal from […]