On the shelves of the international
bookstores, you' find Haruki Murakami to be one of the most widely translated Japanese
novelists. His fiction, along with the work of Banana Yoshimoto, is the closest Japan has
got to the genre of magic realism. His dreamlike narratives have been attacked by critics
as "amoral, apolitical and escapist". However, in recent years, Murakami has
undergone a drastic change tackling controversial issues and uncovering things in
Japanese society that the authorities would rather leave in the dark.
Born in Kobe in 1950, Murakami was introduced to Japanese literature by his high-school
teacher father. Entering Waseda University, he chose to study Greek drama. For him,
though, the real tragedy of his student days was the rise and inevitable destruction of
the student radical movement. Disenchanted with mainstream society, Murakami opened a jazz
cafEin Shibuya and ran it for nine years. Soaking up the bohemian atmosphere, he spent
long nights at his kitchen table, writing down ideas and impressions. The result was his
first novel, Hear the Wind Sing, which won the Noma prize for fiction in 1980.
Popular success and reluctant critical acclaim followed a string of big-sellers: Norwegian
Wood, Wild Sheep Chase and his latest, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles. They were rapidly
translated into English and other languages and scored a big hit in the US, where the
novels acquired a strong cult following.
The appeal of Murakami's fiction lies in the characters and sub-plots that are interwoven
through all of his novels. The protagonist is always a nameless, first-person narrator.
His closest friends - his girlfriend and a cynical low-life known as The Rat - reappear
from book to book and even come back as ghosts after their deaths. During the 1980s, his
stories became more and more bizarre, culminating in the pure SF masterpiece that was Hard
Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World.
At the beginning of the 1990s, Murakami was living permanently in the US and teaching
first at Princeton, then at Tufts University. The 1991 Gulf War made him aware of
widespread concern over Japan's position in global politics. In 1995, the destruction of
his home town, Kobe, by earthquake and the Aum Shinrikyo nerve gas attack, shocked him
into asking questions about his personal responsibility - and Japan's collective future.
"I feel a sense of crisis," he remarked in an interview last May. "Not a
single one of the basic problems has been solved."
Murakami's response to the dangers he perceived was Underground, published in 1997, a
collection of interviews with survivors of the 1995 subway gas attack. In March this year,
a second series of interviews began appearing in the literary magazine, Bungei Shinju.
This time, they are interviews with members of the Aum Shinrikyo, reflecting on their past
actions and motivations.
In the past, Murakami said his greatest asset was "detachment". Now, as he
continues to investigate the forces which are subverting Japanese society, it seems that's
been changed to "commitment".
On the shelves of the international
bookstores, you' find Haruki Murakami to be one of the most widely translated Japanese
novelists. His fiction, along with the work of Banana Yoshimoto, is the closest Japan has
got to the genre of magic realism. His dreamlike narratives have been attacked by critics
as "amoral, apolitical and escapist". However, in recent years, Murakami has
undergone a drastic change tackling controversial issues and uncovering things in
Japanese society that the authorities would rather leave in the dark.
BIG IN JAPAN: