Murakami Haruki was born in Kyoto but moved to Kobe shortly afterward with his family. Since his father was a teacher, he formed an acquaintance with books early in life -- especially American novels.

In 1968 Murakami entered Waseda University, where he studied theater. While a student he married a classmate named Yōko, and for three years the couple lived with her parents, relying heavily on them for financial support. In 1974, when Murakami was 25 years old, he and his wife opened a jazz coffee shop in Kokubunji, Tokyo. Five years later, Murakami went to Jingū Stadium in Tokyo to watch a baseball game. In the middle of the game, the urge suddenly came upon him to write a novel. From this time forward, he spent a part of every night writing in his kitchen after the coffee shop closed.

Murakami finished his first novel, Kaze no uta o kike (Hear the Wind Sing) the same year, winning the Gunzō Prize for New Writers. This marked the beginning of a prolific career that shows no sign of slowing down. 1973-nen no pinbōru (Pinball 1973) came out in 1980, and Hitsuji o meguru bōken (A Wild Sheep Chase) won the Noma Literary Award for New Writers in 1982. Together, these three novels form a trilogy that portrays in a hip, witty style the sensibilities of youth growing up in the 1970s. Sekai no owari to hādoboirudo wandārando (Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World ) introduced an atmosphere of fantasy and science fiction into Murakami's work and won him the Tanizaki Jun'ichirō Prize in 1985. In 1987 Murakami published the two-volume Noruei no mori (Norwegian Wood ), his best-selling novel to date. Murakami has since published numerous other novels, short stories and essays, supplemented by highly regarded translations of such American writers as Raymond Carver.

Murakami appears to find congenial a lifestyle that involves traveling back and forth between Japan, Europe, and America. As the leading representative (with Yoshimoto Banana) of the Japanese version of international pop fiction, Murakami enjoys immense popularity both at home and abroad, where he has now sold more novels in translation than any other Japanese writer.

One's initial reaction to Murakami might be one of wondering whether his fiction can be called "Japanese" at all. But it is hard to think of anything more characteristic of contemporary Japanese culture than the influence of American and British popular music, for instance, and in that respect there is no question that Murakami is very much a Japanese writer indeed.

• Dance Dance Dance. Trans. Alfred T. Birnbaum. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1994. New York: Kodansha America, Inc., 1994. New York: Vintage Books, 1995.
• The Elephant Vanishes. Trans. Jay Rubin and Alfred T. Birnbaum. New York: Random House, 1994.
• Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. Trans. Alfred T. Birnbaum. Tokyo, New York, and London: Kodansha International, 1991. New York: Vintage Books, 1993.
• Hear the Wind Sing. Trans. Alfred T. Birnbaum. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1987.
• Norwegian Wood. Trans. Alfred T. Birnbaum. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1989. New York: Vintage Books, 2000.
• Pinball, 1973. Trans. Alfred T. Birnbaum. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1985.
• South of the Border, West of the Sun. 1998. Trans. Philip Gabriel. New York: Random House, 2000.
• Sputnik Sweetheart. Trans. J. Philip Gabriel. 2001. New York: Vintage Books, 2002.
• Underground. Trans. Alfred Birnbaum and J. Philip Gabriel. New York: Vintage Books, 2001.
• A Wild Sheep Chase. Trans. Alfred T. Birnbaum. Tokyo and New York: Kodansha International, 1989. New York: NAL/Dutton, 1990. New York: Penguin Putnam Inc., 1995.
• The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. Trans. Jay Rubin. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997. New York: Vintage Books, 1998.

• Strecher, Matthew Carl. Dances with Sheep: The Quest for Identity in the Fiction of Murakami Haruki. Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan, 2001.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Murakami Zone:  A wide-ranging collection of links to sites on Murakami, in both English and Japanese. Quite a source of information for the diligent Web surfer, though it really should be better organized.

Haruki Murakami Forum:  A bulletin board where readers can exchange opinions and information regarding Murakami, once managed by Amy Tak-yee Lai, an English major at the University of Cambridge, but last updated by her in 1999 (Lai's separate unofficial Murakami site has apparently been dicontinued). The forum itself was still active in January 2004, although now a disturbing popup window from the hosting service (Network54) invites the viewer to "register" for entry (it is an invasive invitation, although refusing to register does not yet exclude the viewer from the site).

The Salon Interview: Haruki Murakami:  An interview conducted by the online magazine Salon at the end of 1997.