A long-awaited return to the front of the stage. The famous Japanese author Haruki Murakami publishes Thursday April 13 in Japan a new novel, his first for six years. Author of best-selling novels, as well as short stories and essays, Murakami has received a dozen awards and other distinctions. Here are five things to know about this sacred monster of Japanese literature.
74-year-old Haruki Murakami has been consistently considered a favorite to win the Nobel Prize in Literature for years by bookmakers. But without ever obtaining the supreme title. Crowned in particular with the Franz-Kafka Prize in 2006, the Jerusalem Prize in 2011, the International Prize of Catalonia in 2011 or the literary prize of the newspaper Die Welt in 2014, Haruki Murakami has made a name for himself around the globe. In 2022, the Japanese author was awarded the Cino Del Duca World Lifetime Achievement Award. With a check for 200,000 euros, it is the second best-endowed prize after the Nobel.
This is one of the most defining moments of Haruki Murakami’s career. In 2021, his short story Drive My Car was adapted for the cinema into a Japanese film directed by Ry?suke Hamaguchi, which won the Oscar for best foreign film in 2022. Very well received by critics, the film also won the screenplay during its presentation at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival. The short story by Haruki Murakami appeared in the collection Des hommes sans femmes.
Translated into over 50 languages, the master of Japanese literature, by turns disenchanted, fantastical, absurd and realistic, spans four decades and includes a dozen novels as well as short stories and essays. Among his best-known novels are Chronicles of the Spring Bird (1994), Kafka on the Shore (2002) and 1Q84 (2009). Although his works are extremely popular both at home and abroad, Haruki Murakami shuns fame and rarely appears in public.
While the publication date of his new book, Thursday April 13, has been known for several months, the Japanese publishing house Shinchosha, to which Haruki Murakami is attached, took care not to reveal either its title or its subject. The publisher merely stated that the Japanese manuscript was 1,200 pages, without specifying how many pages the book will have when printed or when translated versions of the novel will appear. The wait around the contours of this new book, the author’s first for six years, will therefore end this Thursday.
Before becoming a famous novelist, Haruki Murakami and his wife Yoko invested their savings in Peter Cat, a jazz club in Tokyo. Known for his love of music, the Japanese novelist, who has a collection of over 10,000 vinyl records, is also a DJ for Radio Tokyo, a radio show. During the health crisis, the writer shares his musical tastes with listeners in a two-hour program. “I hope the power of music can help take away some of the coronavirus-related sadness that has built up,” he said at the time.