Episode 28: Haruki Murakami

Check out Episode 28 of the Read Literature podcast.

Transcript available.

In this episode, we’re talking about one of the most important voices in modern Japanese literature, Haruki Murakami.

• His biography
• Why so many people have such strong feelings about his writing
• And his short story “TV People”

We’ll end with what I like best about this much loved (and much hated) author.

Become an RJL supporter for 15 minutes of bonus content.

Support this podcast by buying from Bookshop.org.

• “TV People” (translated by Alfred Birnbaum)
  • Found in The Elephant Vanishes

More by Haruki Murakami:

• 1Q84
• After Dark
• After the Quake (short stories)
• Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman: Stories
• Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
• Dance Dance Dance
• The Elephant Vanishes
• First-Person Singular
• Hard-Boiled Wonderland at the End of the World
• Kafka on the Shore
• Killing Commendatore (read more about Killing Commendatore)
• Men without Women: Stories
• Norwegian Wood
• South of the Border, West of the Sun
• The Strange Library
• Sputnik Sweetheart
• Trilogy of the Rat (series)
• Wind/Pinball: Two Novels
• The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
• Featured in The Penguin Book of Japanese Short Stories

• Absolutely on Music: Conversations with Seiji Ozawa
• Murakami T: The T-Shirts I Love
• Novelist as a Vocation
• Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the American Psyche
• What I Talk about When I Talk about Running

The New Yorker’s complete list of Murakami stories available to read on their website. Free, but with a view limit.

This episode also mentions:

• Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi (translated by Geoffrey Trousselott)
• Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami (translated by Sam Bett and David Boyd)
  • Note that the version of Breasts and Eggs published in English is dramatically expanded from the version that won the Akutagawa, the version mentioned in this episode.
• No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai (translated by Donald Keene)
• The Penguin Book of Japanese Short Stories (edited by Jay Rubin)
• The Silent Cry by Kenzaburo Oe (translated by John Bester)
• Who We’re Reading When We’re Reading Murakami by David Karashima

Find Out More

Murakami’s official English-language website.

Tokyo Weekender’s “List of 7: The Best Haruki Murakami Novels”, 2023. Compiled by Matthew Hernon.
Gitte Marianne Hansen on “How to Read Haruki Murakami the Japanese Way”, 2023. Via The Conversation.

Charmaine Esmerelda writes about Haruki Murakami’s cover art, including work by John Gall featured on the art for this RJL episode, 2020. Via Medium.

–

Kaori Shoji explains why Murakami is still worth reading. Via the Japanese Subculture Research Center, 2022.

–

Murakami on “The Moment [He] Became a Novelist”, 2015. Via LitHub. Translated by Ted Goossen.

Read Japanese Literature writes about “Aum Anxiety” in contemporary Japanese fiction, with a special focus on the work of Haruki Murakami, 2021.

Deep Dive Japan Podcast takes up “Haruki Murakami’s New Novel”, 2023. Podcast episode + transcript. 33 minutes. Morales serves as the Murakami expert, and you can find more of his work at howtojapanese.com.

Scott Spencer of Nihongobookreview.com discusses the not-yet-translated The City and Its Uncertain Walls, 2023.

–

Haruki Murakami and Mieko Kawakami discuss Murakami’s female characters, 2017—translated into English in 2020. Via LitHub. Translated by Sam Bett and David Boyd.

–

RJL looks at Murakami’s Killing Commendatore, 2020.

–

Japanese Literature at Facebook

Japanese Literature at Goodreads

Other RJL Episodes of Interest:

• Episode 18: Cats in Japanese Literature. Takes up Murakami’s love of cats.
• Episode 19: Japanese Magical Realism. Covers Murakami’s use of magical realism in his writing.
• Episode 20: Kobo Abe and the Akutagawa Prize. Briefly discusses Oe’s dislike of Murakami and Banana Yoshimoto, as well as Murakami’s failure to win Japan’s most coveted literary award. Murakami is also sometimes compared to Abe because both authors’ styles pull from so many non-Japanese sources.
• Episode 21: Sexlessness in Japanese Fiction. Discusses Mieko Kawakami’s friendship with Murakami.
• Episode 24: SF! Japanese Science Fiction. Discusses Murakami’s role in Japanese SF.

Sources

Buruma, Ian. “Becoming Japanese” in The New Yorker, 1996. (free, article limit)

Buchanan, Rowan Hisayo. “Who You’re Reading When You Read Haruki Murakami” in The Atlantic, 2020. (free)

Chilton, Myles. “Realist Magic and the Invented Tokyos of Murakami Haruki and Yoshimoto Banana” in Journal of Narrative Theory, 2009.

Fincher, Alison. “Aum Anxiety” at ReadJapaneseLiterature.com, 2021. (free)

–. “Killing Commendatore; or, What the Hell Is a Double Metaphor” at ReadJapaneseLiterature.com, 2020. (free)

Gordon, Andrew. A Modern History of Japan: From Tokugawa Times to the Present, 4th ed. OUP, 2019.

Hutchinson, Rachel and Leith Morton. “Introduction” in Routledge Handbook of Modern Japanese Literature, ed. Rachael Hutchinson and Leith Morton, 2016.

Kahan, Kim. “Fighting for Modern Japan: The University Protests of 1968-69” at Tokyo Weekender, 2023. (free)

Karashima, David. Who We’re Reading When We’re Reading Murakami. Soft Skull, 2020.

Kelts, Roland. “The Harukists, Disappointed” in The New Yorker, 2012. (free, article limit)

Harding, John Wesley. “Haruki Murakami” (Interview) at Bombsite, 1994. (free via Web Archive)

Morales, Daniel, Patrick St. Michel, and Shaun McKenna. “Haruki Murakami’s New Novel. Plus, Allegations Resurgence in J-Pop” at Deep Dive: Looking Beneath the Surface of Japan (podcast episode transcript), 2023. (free)

Murakami Haruki. “Abandoning a Cat” (translated by Philip Gabriel) in The New Yorker, 2019. (free, article limit)

Murakami Haruki. “Haruki Murakami: The Moment I Became a Novelist” (translated by Ted Goossen) at LitHub, 2015. (free)

Murakami Haruki. “Introduction” in The Penguin Book of Japanese Short Stories, ed. Jay Rubin, Penguin, 2020.

Murakami Haruki. “TV People” (translated by Alfred Birnbaum) in The Elephant Vanishes. Vintage, 1993.

Murakami Haruki. “A Walk to Kobe” (translated by Philip Gabriel) at Granta, 2013. (free)

–. “Speaking as an Unrealistic Dreamer” (translated by Emanuel Pastreich) at The Asia-Pacific Journal, 2011. (free)

Murakami Haruki and Maik Grossekathöfer. “When I Run I Am in a Peaceful Place: Interview with Haruki Murakami” at Spiegel, 2008. (free via Web Archive)

Murakami Haruki and John Wesley Harding. “Haruki Murakami (interview)” at BOMB Magazine, 1994. (free via Web Archive)

Murakami Haruki and Mieko Kawakami. “A Feminist Critique of Murakami’s Novels, with Murakami Himself” (interview.” Translated by Sam Bett and David Boyd, at LitHub, 2020. (free)

Murakami Haruki and Deborah Treisman. “The Underground Worlds of Haruki Murakami” in The New Yorker, 2019. (free, article limit)

Murakami Haruki and John Wray. “Haruki Murakami, The Art of Fiction No. 182” in The Paris Review, 2004. (free)

Murakami Haruki, Yutaka Yukawa, and Tetsuro Koyama. “Darkness and Forgiveness: Haruki Murakami Reflects on Power and Violence in the World and Literature” in The Japan Times, 2019.

Naparstek, Ben. “The Lone Wolf” in The Age, 2006. (free)

Napier, Susan J. “The Magic of Identity: Magic Realism in Modern Japanese Fiction” in Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community. Edited by Lois Parkinson Zamora and Wendy B. Faris, Duke UP, 1995.

Oe Kenzaburo. “Japan’s Dual Identity: A Writer’s Dilemma” in World Literature Today, 1988.

Rubin, Jay. Haruki Murakami and the Music of Words. Random House, 2002.

Shoji Kaori. “Driving in Winter with Haruki Murakami” at Japanese Subculture Research Center, 2022. (free)

Snider, Grant. “Murakami Bingo” in The New York Times, 2014. (free, article limit)

Spencer, Scott. “街とその不確かな壁 (‘The City And Its Uncertain Walls’)” at Nihongobookreview.com, 2023. (free)

Spencer, Scott. “村上春樹はノーベル賞をとれるのか? (‘Could Haruki Murakami Get the Nobel Prize?’)” at Nihongobookreview.com, 2021. (free)

Spencer, Scott. “村上春樹{訳}: 短篇再読 (‘Haruki Murakami As Translator: A Second Look At The Short Stories’)” at Nihongobookreview.com, 2017. (free)

Stretcher, Matthew Carl. Dances with Sheep: The Quest for Identity in the Fiction of Murakami Haruki, U of MI, 2002. (free via Open Access)

Updike, John. “Subconscious Tunnels: Haruki Murakami’s Dreamlike New Novel” in The New Yorker, 2005. (free, article limit)

Vasile, Adelina. “Cat Imagery in Haruki Murakami’s Fiction” in Analele Universitatii Crestine Dimitrie Cantemir, Seria Stiintele Limbii,Literaturii si Didactica predarii, 2012. (free)

Yamaguchi, Mari. “Murakami’s 1st Novel in 6 Years to Hit Stores in April” at APNews.com, 2023. (free)

Williams, Richard. “Marathon Man” in The Guardian, 2003. (free)