Haruki Murakami Popular Books
Haruki Murakami Biography & Facts
Haruki Murakami (村上 春樹, Murakami Haruki, born January 12, 1949) is a Japanese writer. His novels, essays, and short stories have been best-sellers in Japan and internationally, with his work translated into 50 languages and having sold millions of copies outside Japan. He has received numerous awards for his work, including the Gunzo Prize for New Writers, the World Fantasy Award, the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, the Franz Kafka Prize, the Jerusalem Prize and the Princess of Asturias Awards.Growing up in Ashiya near Kobe before moving to Tokyo to attend Waseda University, he published his first novel Hear the Wind Sing (1979) after working as the owner of a small jazz bar for seven years. His notable works include the novels Norwegian Wood (1987), The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (1994–95), Kafka on the Shore (2002) and 1Q84 (2009–10); the latter was ranked as the best work of Japan's Heisei era (1989–2019) by the national newspaper Asahi Shimbun's survey of literary experts. His work spans genres including science fiction, fantasy, and crime fiction, and has become known for its use of magical realist elements. His official website cites Raymond Chandler, Kurt Vonnegut and Richard Brautigan as key inspirations to his work, while Murakami himself has named Kazuo Ishiguro, Cormac McCarthy and Dag Solstad as his favourite currently active writers. Murakami has also published five short story collections, including First Person Singular (2020), and non-fiction works including Underground (1997), an oral history of the Tokyo subway sarin attack, and What I Talk About When I Talk About Running (2007), a memoir about his experience as a long distance runner.His fiction has polarized literary critics and the reading public. He has sometimes been criticised by Japan's literary establishment as un-Japanese, leading to Murakami's recalling that he was a "black sheep in the Japanese literary world". Meanwhile, Murakami has been described by Gary Fisketjon, the editor of Murakami's collection The Elephant Vanishes (1993), as a "truly extraordinary writer", while Steven Poole of The Guardian praised Murakami as "among the world's greatest living novelists" for his oeuvre. Biography Murakami was born in Kyoto, Japan, during the post-World War II baby boom and raised in Nishinomiya, Ashiya and Kobe. He is an only child. His father was the son of a Buddhist priest, and his mother is the daughter of an Osaka merchant. Both taught Japanese literature. His father was involved in the Second Sino-Japanese War, and was deeply traumatized by it, which would, in turn, affect Murakami.Since childhood, Murakami, like Kōbō Abe, has been heavily influenced by Western culture, particularly Western as well as Russian music and literature. He grew up reading a wide range of works by European and American writers, such as Franz Kafka, Gustave Flaubert, Charles Dickens, Kurt Vonnegut, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Richard Brautigan and Jack Kerouac. These Western influences distinguish Murakami from the majority of other Japanese writers.Murakami studied drama at Waseda University in Tokyo, where he met Yoko, now his wife. His first job was at a record store. Shortly before finishing his studies, Murakami opened a coffee house and jazz bar, Peter Cat, in Kokubunji, Tokyo, which he ran with his wife, from 1974 to 1981. The couple decided not to have children.Murakami is an experienced marathon runner and triathlon enthusiast, though he did not start running until he was 33 years old, after he began as a way to stay healthy. On June 23, 1996, he completed his first ultramarathon, a 100 km race around Lake Saroma in Hokkaido, Japan. He discussed running and its effect on his creative life in a 2007 memoir, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. Writing career Trilogy of the Rat Murakami began to write fiction when he was 29. "Before that," he said, "I didn't write anything. I was just one of those ordinary people. I was running a jazz club, and I didn't create anything at all." He was inspired to write his first novel, Hear the Wind Sing (1979), while watching a baseball game. He described the moment he realized he could write as a "warm sensation" he could still feel in his heart. He went home and began writing that night. Murakami worked on Hear the Wind Sing for ten months in very brief stretches, during nights, after working days at the bar. He completed the novel and sent it to the only literary contest that would accept a work of that length, winning first prize. Murakami's initial success with Hear the Wind Sing encouraged him to continue writing. A year later, he published a sequel, Pinball, 1973. In 1981, he co-wrote a short story collection, Yume de Aimashou with author and future Earthbound/Mother creator Shigesato Itoi. In 1982, he published A Wild Sheep Chase, a critical success. Hear the Wind Sing, Pinball, 1973, and A Wild Sheep Chase form the Trilogy of the Rat (a sequel, Dance, Dance, Dance, was written later but is not considered part of the series), centered on the same unnamed narrator and his friend, "the Rat". The first two novels were not widely available in English translation outside Japan until 2015, although an English edition, translated by Alfred Birnbaum with extensive notes, had been published by Kodansha as part of a series intended for Japanese students of English. Murakami considers his first two novels to be "immature" and "flimsy", and has not been eager to have them translated into English. A Wild Sheep Chase, he says, was "the first book where I could feel a kind of sensation, the joy of telling a story. When you read a good story, you just keep reading. When I write a good story, I just keep writing." Wider recognition In 1985, Murakami wrote Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, a dream-like fantasy that took the magical elements of his work to a new extreme. Murakami achieved a major breakthrough and national recognition in 1987 with the publication of Norwegian Wood, a nostalgic story of loss and sexuality. It sold millions of copies among young Japanese.Norwegian Wood propelled the barely known Murakami into the spotlight. He was mobbed at airports and other public places, leading to his departure from Japan in 1986. Murakami traveled through Europe, lived in the United States and currently resides in Oiso, Kanagawa, with an office in Tokyo.Murakami was a writing fellow at Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey, Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, and Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. During this time he wrote South of the Border, West of the Sun and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. From "detachment" to "commitment" The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (1995) fuses the realistic and fantastic and contains elements of physical violence. It is also more socially conscious than his previous work, dealing in part with the difficult topic of war crimes in Manchukuo (Northeast China). The novel won the Yomiuri Prize, awarded by o.... Discover the Haruki Murakami popular books. 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Best Seller Haruki Murakami Books of 2024
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The Big New Yorker Book of Cats
The New Yorker Magazine, Haruki Murakami, Calvin Trillin & M.F.K. FisherLook what The New Yorker dragged in! It’s the purrfect gathering of talent celebrating our feline companions.This bountiful collection, beautifully illustrated in fu...
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The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Haruki MurakamiA "dreamlike and compelling” tour de force (Chicago Tribune)an astonishingly imaginative detective story, an account of a disintegrating marriage, and an excavation of the buried s...
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Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
Haruki Murakami & Philip GabrielA New York Times #1 BestsellerA New York Times and Washington Post notable book, and one of the Financial Times, St. Louis PostDispatch, Slate, Mother Jone...
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The Penguin Book of Japanese Short Stories
Jay RubinThis fantastically varied and exciting collection celebrates the great Japanese short story, from its modern origins in the nineteenth century to the remarkable works being written...
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Abroad
Penelope LivelyA brilliantly funny original short story from Booker Prize winning author Penelope Lively.'Anyone artistic needed Abroad in the 1950s.'Paul and his girlfriend are artists in need o...
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Vintage Murakami
Haruki MurakamiVintage Readers are a perfect introduction to some of the greatest modern writers presented in attractive, accessible paperback editions. “Murakami’s bold willingness to go str...
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Underground
Haruki MurakamiIn this haunting work of journalistic investigation, Haruki Murakami tells the story of the horrific terrorist attack on Japanese soil that shook the entire world. On a clear...
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Murakami T
Haruki Murakami & Philip GabrielThe international literary icon opens his eclectic closet: Here are photographs of Murakami’s extensive and personal Tshirt collection, accompanied by essays that reveal a side of ...
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Men Without Women
Haruki Murakami, Philip Gabriel & Ted GoossenNATIONAL BESTSELLER Including the story "Drive My Car”now an Academy Award–nominated filmthis collection from the internationally acclaimed author "examines what happens to charac...
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Haruki Murakami
Chikako NiheiHaruki Murakami: Storytelling and Productive Distance studies the evolution of the monogatari, or narrative and storytelling in the works of Haruki Murakami. Author Chikako Nihei a...
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Sputnik Sweetheart
Haruki MurakamiPart romance, part detective story, Sputnik Sweetheart tells the story of a tangled triangle of uniquely unrequited love.K is madly in love with his best friend, Sumire, but her de...
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The Strange Library
Haruki Murakami & Ted GoossenFrom internationally acclaimed author Haruki Murakamia fantastical illustrated short novel about a boy imprisoned in a nightmarish library. Opening the flaps on this unique ...
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Novelist as a Vocation
Haruki Murakami, Philip Gabriel & Ted GoossenNEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER An insightful look into the mind of a master storytellerand a unique look at the craft of writing from the beloved and bestselling a...
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First Person Singular
Haruki Murakami & Philip GabrielNATIONAL BEST SELLER A mindbending new collection of short stories from the internationally acclaimed, bestselling author. “Some novelists hold a mirror up to the world and some,...
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The Incomplete Book of Running
Peter SagalPeter Sagal, the host of NPR’s Wait Wait...Don’t Tell Me! and a popular columnist for Runner’s World, shares “commentary and reflection about running with a deeply felt personal st...
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Raw Spirit
Iain BanksA fascinating journey through Scotland's famous distilleries with legendary author Iain Banks No true Scotsman can resist the allure of the nation's whisky distilleries. In an abso...
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After the Quake
Haruki MurakamiSet at the time of the catastrophic 1995 Kobe earthquake, the mesmerizing stories in After the Quake are as haunting as dreams and as potent as oracles.An electronics salesman who ...
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Racing the Rain
John L. ParkerFrom the author of the New York Times bestselling Once a Runneracclaimed by Runner’s World as “the best novel ever written about running”comes that novel’s prequel, the story of a ...
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The Elephant Vanishes
Haruki MurakamiIn the tales that make up The Elephant Vanishes, the imaginative genius that has made Haruki Murakami an international superstar is on full display.In these stories, a man sees his...
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Norwegian Wood
Haruki MurakamiFrom the bestselling author of Kafka on the Shore: A magnificent comingofage story steeped in nostalgia, “a masterly novel” (The New York Times Book Review) blending the music, the...
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Killing Commendatore
Haruki MurakamiNATIONAL BESTSELLER A tour de force of love and loneliness, war and artfrom one of our greatest writers. “Exhilarating ... magical.” The Washington PostWhen a thirtysomethin...
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The Paris Review Interviews, IV
The Paris ReviewFor more than fifty years, The Paris Review has brought us revelatory and revealing interviews with the literary lights of our age. This critically acclaimed series continues with ...
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City of Ash and Red
Hye-young Pyun & Sora Kim-RussellNAMED AN NPR GREAT READ OF 2018From the Shirley Jackson Award–winning author of The Hole, a Kafkaesque tale of crime and punishment hailed by Korea’s Wall Street Journal as “a...
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What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
Haruki MurakamiAn intimate look at writing, running, and the incredible way they intersect, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running is an illuminating glimpse into the solitary passions of on...
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Los mundos de Haruki Murakami
Justo SoteloLos mundos de Haruki Murakami, de Justo Sotelo, es el primer ensayo en español que analiza con extensión, rigor y amenidad el corpus narrativo del escritor japonés, desde la perspe...
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Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
Haruki MurakamiFrom the surreal to the mundane, twentyfour stories that “show Murukami at his dynamic, organic best” (Los Angeles Times Book Review). "A warning to new readers of Haruki Mura...
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1Q84
Haruki MurakamiNATIONAL BESTSELLER The year is 1984 and the city is Tokyo. A young woman named Aomame follows a taxi driver’s enigmatic suggestion and begins to notice puzzling discrepancies in ...
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After Dark
Haruki Murakami & Jay RubinFrom the New York Times bestselling authora gripping novel of late night encounters that’s “hypnotically eerie, sometimes even funny, but most of all … [a book] that keeps ratcheti...
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South of the Border, West of the Sun
Haruki Murakami & Philip GabrielSouth of the Border, West of the Sun is the beguiling story of a past rekindled, and one of Haruki Murakami’s most touching novels.Hajime has arrived at middle age with a loving fa...
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Russian Thinkers
Isaiah Berlin & Henry HardyFew, if any, Englishlanguage critics have written as perceptively as Isaiah Berlin about Russian thought and culture. Russian Thinkers is his unique meditation on the impact that R...
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The Pillow Book
Sei Shonagon & Meredith McKinneyA new translation of the idiosyncratic diary of a C10 court lady in Heian Japan. Along with the TALE OF GENJI, this is one of the major Japanese Classics.
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Sanshiro
Natsume Sōseki & Jay RubinOne of Soseki's most beloved works of fiction, the novel depicts the 23yearold Sanshiro leaving the sleepy countryside for the first time in his life to experience the constantly m...
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Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
Haruki MurakamiHyperkinetic and relentlessly inventive, HardBoiled Wonderland and the End of the World is Haruki Murakami’s deep dive into the very nature of consciousness.Across two parallel nar...
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The Last Tycoon
F. Scott FitzgeraldWith a new introduction by bestselling and iconic novelist Haruki MurakamiThis edition of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s final unfinished novel is now restored to the original 1941 text, wi...
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Nobody Is Ever Missing
Catherine LaceyIn the spirit of Haruki Murakami and Amelia Gray, Catherine Lacey's Nobody Is Ever Missing is full of mordant humor and uncanny insights, as Elyria waffles between obsession and n...
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The Law of Lines
Hye-young Pyun & Sora Kim-RussellFrom the awardwinning author of The Hole, a "Simmering" (New York Times Book Review) and "Compelling" (Wall Street Journal ) thriller"A mystery masterpiece . . . Hyeyoung...
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A Wild Sheep Chase
Haruki MurakamiA New York Times bestselling authorand “a mythmaker for the millennium, a wiseacre wiseman” (New York Times Book Review)delivers a surreal and elaborate quest that takes readers fr...
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Essays in Idleness
Meredith McKinney, none Kenko & Kamo no ChomeiThese two works on life's fleeting pleasures are by Buddhist monks from medieval Japan, but each shows a different worldview. In the short memoir Hôjôki, Chômei recounts his decisi...
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Haruki Murakami Manga Stories 2
Haruki MurakamiHaruki Murakami's bestloved stories finally in graphic novel form!Haruki Murakami's novels, essays and short stories have sold millions of copies worldwide and been translated into...
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Again to Carthage
John L. ParkerAgain to Carthage is the "breathtaking, pulsequickening, stunning" sequel to Once a Runner that "will have you standing up and cheering, and pulling on your running shoes" (Chicago...
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Kafka on the Shore
Haruki MurakamiNATIONAL BESTSELLER From the New York Times bestselling author of The WindUp Bird Chronicle and one of the world’s greatest storytellers comes "an insistently metaphysical mi...
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Absolutely on Music
Haruki Murakami, Seiji Ozawa & Jay RubinA deeply personal, intimate conversation about music and writing between the internationally acclaimed, bestselling author and the former conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra...
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Haruki Murakami Manga Stories 1
Haruki MurakamiHaruki Murakami's stories in graphic novel form for the first time!Haruki Murakami's novels, essays and short stories have sold millions of copies worldwide and been translated int...
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Kitchen
Banana YoshimotoLa novela con la que se dio a conocer Banana Yoshimoto, una de las voces más prestigiosas de la literatura japonesa actual.Cuando la jovencísima Mikage se queda sola a la muerte de...
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Dance Dance Dance
Haruki Murakami & Alfred BirnbaumDance Dance Dancea followup to A Wild Sheep Chaseis a tense, poignant, and often hilarious ride through Murakami’s Japan, a place where everything that is not up for sale is up for...
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Once a Runner
John L. ParkerThe undisputed classic of running novels and one of the most beloved sports books ever published, Once a Runner tells the story of an athlete’s dreams amid the turmoil of the 60s a...