A guide to Haruki Murakami's books: what's special about them and why they're worth reading. Haruki Murakami - biography, information, personal life Student years and youth

popular contemporary Japanese writer and translator

short biography

(Japanese: 村上春樹 Murakami Haruki, January 12, 1949, Kyoto) is a Japanese writer and translator.

Chronology of life and creativity

Haruki Murakami was born in 1949 in Kyoto, in the family of a classical philology teacher.

Haruki Murakami's grandfather, a Buddhist priest, ran a small temple. My father taught Japanese language and literature at school, and in his spare time he was also engaged in Buddhist education. He studied classical drama at the Department of Theater Arts at Waseda University. In 1950, the writer’s family moved to the city of Asia, a suburb of the port of Kobe (Hyogo Prefecture).

In 1971, he married his classmate Yoko, with whom he still lives, no children. In 1974, he opened his own jazz bar, Peter Cat, in the Kokubunji district of Tokyo. In 1977, he moved his bar to a quieter area of ​​the city, Sendagaya.

In April 1978, during a baseball game, I realized that I could write a book. Still doesn't know why exactly. In Murakami’s own words: “I just understood it - that’s all.” Murakami increasingly stayed after the bar closed for the night and wrote texts - with an ink pen on simple sheets of paper.

In 1979, the story “Listen to the Song of the Wind” was published - the first part of the so-called. "The Rat Trilogy". For her, he received the literary prize “Gunzo Shinjin-sho” - a prestigious award awarded annually by the magazine “Gunzo” to aspiring Japanese writers. And a little later - the “Noma Prize” from the leading literary magazine “Bungay” for the same thing. By the end of the year, the prize-winning novel had sold out a circulation unheard of for a debut - over 150 thousand hardcover copies.

In 1981, Murakami sold his bar license and became a professional writer. In 1982, he completed his first novel, Sheep Hunt, the third installment of the Rat Trilogy. In the same year he received another Noma award for him.

In 1985, the novel “Unstoppable Wonderland and the End of the World” was published, for which he received the Tanizaki Prize in the same year. In addition to the above-mentioned novel, this year a book of children's fairy tales, “The Christmas of the Sheep,” with illustrations by Sasaki Maki, and a collection of short stories, “The Deadly Heat of the Carousel with Horses,” were published.

In 1986, Murakami left with his wife for Italy, and later for Greece. Traveled to several islands of the Aegean Sea. A collection of short stories, “Repeat Raid on the Bakery,” was published in Japan.

In 1988, in London, Murakami completed work on the novel Dance, Dance, Dance, a continuation of the Rat Trilogy.

In 1990, a collection of short stories, Teletubbies Strike Back, was published in Japan.

In 1991, Murakami moved to the United States and took a position as a research intern at Princeton University. An 8-volume collection of works was published in Japan, which included everything that was written between 1979 and 1989.

In 1992, he received an associate professor degree from Princeton University. He completed and published the novel “South of the Border, West of the Sun” in Japan.

Having left Japan for the West, he, who spoke excellent English, for the first time in the history of Japanese literature began to look at his homeland through the eyes of a European:

...I went to the States for almost five years, and suddenly, while living there, I completely unexpectedly wanted to write about Japan and the Japanese. Sometimes about the past, sometimes about how things are now. It's easier to write about your country when you're far away. From a distance you can see your country as it is. Before that, I somehow didn’t really want to write about Japan. I just wanted to write about myself and my world

He recalled in one of his interviews, which he doesn’t really like to give.

In July 1993, he moved to Santa Ana, California, and lectured on modern (post-war) world literature at William Howard Taft University. Visited China and Mongolia.

In 1994, the first 2 volumes of the novel “The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle” were published in Tokyo.

In 1995, the 3rd volume of the Chronicles was published. Two tragedies happened in Japan at once: the Kobe earthquake and the sarin attack of the Aum Shinrikyo sect. Murakami began work on the documentary book "Underground".

In 1996, he published a collection of short stories, Ghosts of Lexington. Returned to Japan and settled in Tokyo. Conducted a number of meetings and interviews with victims and executioners of the “sarin terrorist attack.”

In 2000, he published a collection of short stories, All God's Children Can Dance.

January 2001 - moved to a house on the seashore in Oiso, where he still lives.

In February 2003, he released a new translation of Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye, which broke all sales records for translated literature in Japan at the beginning of the new century.

In June-July 2003, together with colleagues from the Tokyo Dried Cuttlefish travel club, I visited Russia for the first time - on the island of Sakhalin. In September I went to Iceland. At the same time, he began work on another novel, which was published in 2004 under the title “Afterglow.”

In 2006, the writer received the Franz Kafka Literary Prize. The award ceremony took place in the City Hall of Assembly in Prague, where the nominee was presented with a small Kafka statue and a check for 10 thousand dollars.

In 2008, in an interview with the Kyodo news agency, Murakami said that he was working on a new very large novel. “Every day now I sit at a desk for five to six hours,” Murakami said. “I’ve been working on a new novel for a year and two months.” The writer claims that he is inspired by Dostoevsky. “He became more productive over the years and wrote The Brothers Karamazov when he was already old. I'd like to do the same."

According to Murakami, he intends to create "a gigantic novel that would absorb the chaos of the whole world and clearly show the direction of its development." That is why the writer has now abandoned the intimate manner of his early works, which were usually written in the first person. “The novel that I keep in my head combines the views of different people, different stories, which creates a common unified story,” explains the writer. “So I have to write now in the third person.”

In 2009, Haruki Murakami condemned Israel for its counter-terrorism operation in the Gaza Strip. The writer said this in Jerusalem, using the platform provided to him in connection with the award of the Jerusalem Literary Prize for 2009:

“The attack on the Gaza Strip killed more than a thousand people, including many unarmed civilians,” the writer said in a 15-minute speech in English at the celebrations in Jerusalem. “To come here to receive the prize would be to create the impression that I support a policy of suppressive use of military force.” However, instead of not being present and remaining silent, I chose the opportunity to speak."

“When I write a novel,” said Murakami, “I always have in my soul the image of an egg that breaks against a high, solid wall. The “wall” can be tanks, missiles, phosphorus bombs. And the “egg” is always unarmed people, they are suppressed, they are shot. I am always on the side of the egg in this fight. Is there any good in writers who stand on the side of the wall?”

On May 28, 2009, the writer’s new novel “1Q84” went on sale in Japan. The entire launch edition of the book was sold out before the end of the day.

In September 2010, the Russian translation of Murakami’s book “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running” was published. According to the author, this is a collection of “sketches about running, but not the secrets of a healthy lifestyle.” “To write sincerely about running,” says Murakami, “is to write sincerely about yourself.”

In January 2017, Shinchosha Publishing House announced that Murakami's new novel would be called Kishidancho Goroshi, or Killing commendatore in the English version.

Translation activities

Murakami translated from English into Japanese a number of works by Francis Scott Fitzgerald, Truman Capote, John Irving, Jerome Salinger and other American prose writers of the 20th century, as well as fairy tales by Van Allsburg and Ursula Le Guin.

Beyond literature

Married, no children. He is interested in marathon running and triathlons, and has participated in ultra-marathon races. In the early 1990s, he hosted a talk show for night owls on one of the commercial channels in Tokyo about Western music and subculture. He has published several photo albums and guides to Western music, cocktails and cooking. Known for his collection of 40 thousand jazz records. He loves jazz very much and listens to it ten hours a day for many years. In one of his essays, Murakami wrote:

“It may seem paradoxical, but if I had not been so absorbed in music, I would not have become a writer. Even now, almost 30 years later, I still get a lot from music. My style is deeply imbued with the rhymes of Charlie Parker and the rhythm of F. Scott Fitzgerald's prose. And I still find new writing in the music of Miles Davis."

Literature

• Jay Rubin Haruki Murakami and the music of words(2002, 2005) Translation from English. Anna Shulgat.
• Ermolin E. A. Mediums of timelessness. M.: Vremya, 2015.
• Dmitry Kovalenin, Soussy noir. Entertaining MurakamiEating (2004)

Film adaptations

• 1980 - “Listen to the Song of the Wind” - a film adaptation of the novel of the same name. Directed by Kazuki Omori.
• 2004 - “Tony Takitani” (eng. Tony Takitani). The film is based on the story Tony Takiya included in the collection Ghosts of Lexington. Directed by Jun Ichikawa.
• 2007 - “All God’s Children Can Dance,” directed by Robert Lowdgefall.
• 2010 - “Norwegian Wood” - a film adaptation of the novel of the same name. Directed by Tran Anh Hung.

The question of how he became a writer always puzzles Haruki Murakami. Sometimes he answers that it happened by accident. Sometimes he says that he began to write because he was very absorbed in music. It sounds paradoxical, but the influence of music on Murakami's style is really great. His prose has the same jagged, syncopated rhythm as jazz. This allows the writer to improvise no worse than the famous jazzman Charlie Parker.

early years

Haruki Murakami was born in Kyoto on January 12, 1949. All the men in the family on his father’s side were involved in Buddhist education; his father taught classical philology at school.

Soon after the birth of their son, the family moved to the port town of Kobe, where the writer spent his childhood. In 1968, Haruki entered the prestigious Waseda University to study theater arts. Despite the fact that he had little or no interest in his studies, he managed to successfully obtain a degree in modern drama. During his studies, he was remembered as a participant in the anti-war movement and an opponent of the Vietnam War.

During his student years, Murakami became seriously interested in jazz. In 1974, he opened the Peter Cat jazz bar in Tokyo, which he successfully ran for almost 10 years. While running the business, Haruki never thought about becoming a writer. He married his classmate

nitsa Yoko and led an ordinary middle-class life. One day at a baseball game, Murakami got the idea to write a book. He began to stay in the bar at night and write texts - on plain paper with an ink pen.

Murakami believed that he was not endowed with writing talent. He beautifully outlined his thoughts on this matter in the preface to his first book, Listen to the Song of the Wind (1979). However, critics thought differently. For this story, Haruki was awarded the Gunzo Shinjin-se Prize. The debut of the young writer was also liked by readers, who purchased about 200 thousand copies in a year.

“Listen to the Song of the Wind” is the first part of the so-called “Rat Trilogy”. It was followed by the novels "Pinball 1973" (1980) and "Sheep Hunt" (1982). By this time, Murakami had already sold his business and focused entirely on writing books. Critics have noted that Haruka's early works are filled with extraordinary lightness.

tew. They clearly demonstrate a personal style of writing, which is characterized by a special internal rhythm.

World famous

In 1985, the novel “Wonderland without Brakes and the End of the World” was published, followed by a book of children's fairy tales and several collections of short stories. Having earned good money from selling books, Murakami and his wife went on a trip to Europe. He visited Italy and then traveled to almost all the islands of the Aegean Sea. Touching ancient cultures inspired the writer to create one of the most significant works of his life.

It was in Italy and Greece that Murakami wrote the novel Norwegian Wood (1987), which brought him worldwide fame. The work tells about complex human destinies and raises questions about a person’s sexual life and death. The main character remembers his student years, when he dated two different emo girls

national, lively Midori, and beautiful, but psychologically unstable Naoko. The action takes place in the 60s, during a time of student protests and the wild popularity of rock and roll.

After the book was published, Murakami once again emphasized that it is not autobiographical. He writes in the first person because it makes it easier for him to tell stories. As for the philosophy of the novel, it, like many of the author’s works, is permeated with the theme of death. This is associated with the mentality of the Japanese, for whom death is familiar and everyday.

Norwegian Wood sold two million copies, turning Murakami into the most widely read author of our time. It gained especially great popularity in Europe and the USA, where it became a cult favorite. Among the main reasons for such popularity, critics cite the author’s unique style, the poignancy of his prose and his unusual outlook on life, which is not typical of Europe.

In 1991, Murakami moved to the United States, where he began teaching at Princeton University. In the West, he first looked at his homeland through the eyes of a European. According to the author, he suddenly wanted to write about the Japanese and Japan. In 1993, Murakami moved to Santa Ana, where he lectured on world literature. At the same time, he continued to travel: over the course of several years he visited China, Mongolia, and Russia.

During his stay in the United States, Murakami created several works, the most famous of which was the novel “The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle” (1995). This work is considered the most difficult in the writer’s work. In 2001, he returned to Japan, where he settled on the seashore in the small town of Oiso. Haruki still lives there with his wife.

In addition to his writing activities, Murakami is engaged in translations of classical literature. He translated several works by Truman Ka into Japanese

sweat, Jerome D. Salinger, Francis Scott Fitzgerald, John Irving, as well as fairy tales by Ursula Le Guin and other books.

Murakami is widely known as a fan and connoisseur of jazz. His collection includes 40 thousand records. He also enjoys baseball and triathlons, and several years ago took up marathon running.

In 2008, Murakami announced that he was working on a giant novel that would consume all the chaos of the world. The first part of this large-scale work, entitled “1Q84,” was released in 2009. The initial edition of the book sold out before the end of the day. This suggests that the writer’s popularity is not declining. He is still considered, just as 20 years ago, an unsurpassed master of words. Moreover, critics note that Murakami's works have become deeper. The only thing that has not changed is the amazing rhythm of the prose, reminiscent of jazz compositions by the best musicians in the world.

The living classic of Japanese literature, Haruki Murakami, justifies Gustave Flaubert’s principle: “Be simple in life, and then you will be wild in your creativity.” Murakami leads a good, measured life of a person who enjoys being: he gets up early, goes to bed early, writes a lot, plays a lot of sports, participates in marathons, sometimes travels. And he writes a bestseller a year.

The writer has few childhood memories. He doesn’t like the concept of “family”: “It’s more interesting to make your way through life alone.” His grandfather was a Buddhist priest. My father teaches Japanese literature at school and also serves in the temple. Cultural traditions are indisputable for the father - and cause Haruka's rebellion. He stops talking to his father, abandons Japanese books and begins to read foreign literature. First Russian in translation, then American in the original, buying second-hand pocketbooks left behind by sailors from second-hand booksellers. Haruki studies English on her own. Read completely

Murakami is a student majoring in classical (Greek) drama at Waseda University's Department of Arts. But he prefers to spend time reading scripts of foreign films. He tries to create his own script, but it doesn’t work. However, in the future, critics will call Murakami’s special style the “film method”: the characters in his books observe everything as if through a movie camera. Perhaps this is how the traditional contemplation of Japanese literature manifests itself in a new, high-tech form.

While studying, Haruki marries fellow student Yoko. In 1974, they opened a jazz bar in Tokyo, where art critics had to work hard and outside their specialty. The bar's menu includes cabbage rolls with meat, for which Murakami finely chops a whole basket of onions every morning. The writer laughs that he can still chop a lot of onions very quickly without shedding a single tear. Few of the visitors like it in the jazz bar; the owner gets it from the grumblers. But this teaches him to “keep his tail up” and work further, without reacting to even the harshest criticism.

In 1978, while enjoying a baseball game and sipping beer at Jingu Stadium, Murakami suddenly felt it was time for him to write a book. And he starts it... in English. A year later, the author publishes “Listen to the Song of the Wind” (after all, in Japanese). It sells in large quantities for a debut and brings the author the first national prize.

Friends refuse to believe that Murakami wrote anything. The main tradition in Japanese literature is shi-sesetsu, a diary, a novel about oneself. And Murakami is just Murakami! The author himself later assured that readers would really fall asleep over a novel about his life: “Despite all my literary baggage, I almost never experienced truly exciting adventures in real life.” However, even fictional characters have the traits and preferences of the author. Murakami usually writes in the first person. Writing in the third person is difficult because then he feels like “something like a god”: “But I don’t want to be a god.”

When Murakami began publishing regularly, he sold the jazz bar. And in 1986, he realized his old dream of “getting out of the country.” He is disappointed in Japan: “There are some systems here that I just hate.” Together with his wife, he travels through Italy, Greece, lives in the capital of Great Britain, and then to the USA, where he teaches at various universities. And he writes diligently.

At 33, he quits smoking and takes up running. Later, to the journalist’s remark that 33 is the age of Christ at the crucifixion, the writer replies: “Really? I didn’t know. But we are talking about reincarnation, right?” By the way, Murakami is a realist and does not believe in heavenly powers, reincarnation, Tarot or horoscopes. "But when I write, I write mysticism. It's very strange."

In 1996, the writer returns to his homeland, shocked by two national tragedies that happened a year earlier: a gas attack in the Tokyo subway organized by the Aum Shinrikyo sect, and an earthquake in Kobe, where Haruki Murakami grew up.

For Japanese traditionalists, Murakami “smells like oil.” For a nation that did not consume milk, this means everything foreign. Murakami, they say, laughs at those who build a career and suppress everything personal in the name of the interests of the community. This is true. Murakami's characters are unemployed and carefree outsiders. The writer is sure that work from dawn to dusk destroys a person. His heroes are active in a different sense. They eat, drink, listen to music, clean the house, lose cats, read, sit on the lawn in the park or in the well. They are prone to relationships with mysterious women and resistance to Evil, even if it is lodged in their own head.

Murakami admits: “I’m an individualist, and it’s not easy for people like that in Japan. I have karaokephobia, association phobia, alumni meeting phobia, quail phobia and chronic evening mangophobia.” But no matter what Murakami “smells” of, he considers himself a truly Japanese writer. However, one that modernizes national literature.

Murakami jokingly calls the genre of his works “sushi noir” (by analogy with “art noir”), since for the Japanese there is nothing more terrible than darkened rice. His books are full of darkness, food and music.

“The darkness within man” is a favorite theme. The plot is driven by the energy of the human subconscious. But the author does not analyze it, but displays it. This shows Murakami's "Japaneseness". In the East there is no Evil - there is the Misunderstood. Often it is within ourselves, and it is impossible to fully understand it. If we talk about the external world surrounding the heroes, then each novel has its own Monster, the purpose and goal of which is also beyond the limits of human awareness. Hence, the essence of Murakami’s books is not fully captured.

Because of timidity and fear of disappointment, Murakami does not reread himself. But sometimes he can pick up his own book in English and suddenly get carried away by reading, because the translation has refreshed the text, but the author has already forgotten the plot. And then the translator’s question: “So how do you evaluate my work?” takes the writer by surprise.

Murakami translated Fitzgerald, Carver, Irving, Salinger, Le Guinn into Japanese. He has published several guides to Western music, cocktails and cooking. Loves cats and jazz. His record collection numbers 40,000 copies. Favorite writer - Dostoevsky. Favorite book - "The Brothers Karamazov". Murakami also likes to waste time just like that. “Life itself, to one degree or another, is a waste of time,” he believes.

He himself doesn’t know when he wanted to become a writer. In an interview, Haruki Murakami said that he always believed that he could write books. He claims that writing is as natural to him as breathing. It is almost impossible to find any incriminating facts in the biography of Haruki Murakami. He did not have numerous affairs, connections with the criminal world and addiction to drugs. He simply wrote books because he liked it.

Childhood

Haruki Murakami was born on January 19, 1949 in Japan in the village of Kayako, near the cultural and historical center of the country, Kyoto. Like all Japanese, the writer behaves with restraint and avoids many answers, so the biography of Haruki Murakami contains only general information about his life.

Murakami's grandfather preached Buddhism and was even the abbot of the temple. My father was a school teacher of Japanese language and literature, and in his free time he also helped at the temple. In 1950, the family moved to the city of Asia, near the port of Kobe. Therefore, the boy spent his childhood in the port city. It was at this time that he began to become interested in American and European literature.

Student years and youth

An important stage in the biography of Haruki Murakami was his student years. In 1968, he became a student at the prestigious Waseda University. It is unknown for what reasons he chose to major in classical drama, because he had neither interest nor zeal for reading old scripts.

During his studies, he was frankly bored, but, as befits a hardworking Japanese, he successfully defended his degree in modern drama. During his student years, he took an active part in protests against the Vietnam War.

In 1971, Murakami got married. His wife was his classmate Yoko Takahashi. He still lives happily with her today. The couple have no children. This is where the information about personal life in the biography of Haruki Murakami ends. He had no mistresses, and the writer was never involved in any curious scandals.

Blame it on jazz

Haruki Murakami was always delighted with jazz music, so he decided to turn his passion into a business. In 1974, the future writer opens a jazz bar in Tokyo called Peter Cat. The establishment was a success and generated good income for seven years. Then Murakami sold it. How did this happen? In the biography of Haruki Murakami, brief information about this is also present.

The bar functioned successfully, life slowly moved on and it seemed that nothing would change. But one day Haruki Murakami attended a baseball game, watching the game, he suddenly realized that he could write books. So suddenly the insight came to the writer that it was time to create. After that day, he increasingly began to linger in the bar after closing, sketching for future books. Sometimes a thought that comes suddenly can radically change your life. From the day the decision was made to write books, literature has become an integral part of the biography of Haruki Murakami.

Literature

In 1979, the world saw the first story by Haruki Murakami, “Listen to the Song of the Wind.” She was noticed immediately. This work received the Gunjoshinjin-se Prize, which is awarded to beginners, and the Noma Prize, which is awarded to writers by the literary magazine Bungei. This book is also known as the first part of the “Rat Trilogy” series.

As for the author, Murakami himself greatly underestimated his works. He considered his works weak: they could still be sold in Japan, but they would definitely not be of interest to foreign readers. But these were only the writer’s thoughts; the foreign reader did not agree with them. The works of Haruki Murakami quickly won the attention of visitors to second-hand bookstores in America and Europe. Readers were very impressed by the author's original style.

Time to travel

In 1980, the continuation of the “Rat Trilogy” series, “Pinball 1973” (story), went on sale. Two years later, the final part of the cycle was published - “Sheep Hunting” (novel, 1982). The 1982 work was also awarded the Noma Prize. It was from this period that Murakami's development as a writer began. He decides that the time has come to sell the bar and wants to devote himself entirely to literature.

For his first books, the author received decent fees, which allowed him to travel around Europe and America. His journey lasted several years. He returned to his homeland only in 1996. When Murakami left the Land of the Rising Sun, he managed to publish four collections of short stories:

• "Slow boat to China";
• "Great day for a kangaroo"
• “The mortal agony of a carousel with horses”;
• "Firefly, Burn the Barn and Other Stories."

In addition to stories, he also managed to publish a collection of fairy tales, “The Christmas of the Sheep,” and a fantasy novel, “Unstoppable Wonderland and the End of the World” (1987). The novel receives a prestigious award - the Prize named after. Junichiro Tanizaki.

When Murkami traveled to Italy and Greece, his impressions inspired him to write Norwegian Wood. The work played a key role in the biography and work of Haruki Murakami - this novel brought the writer world fame. Both readers and critics unanimously call this work the best in the writer’s work. A circulation of two million copies instantly spread across Europe and America.

The novel “Norwegian Wood” tells about the student life of the main character in the 60s. In those days, student protests were common, rock and roll was becoming more and more popular, and the main character was dating two girls at the same time. Despite the fact that the story is told in the first person, this is not an autobiographical novel at all, it’s just much more convenient for the author to write this way.

Teacher

In 1988, a new stage began in the biography of writer Haruki Murakami. He moves to London, where he decides to write a sequel to the series “The Rat Trilogy” - the novel “Dance, Dance, Dance” is published in the world.

In 1990, another collection of short stories with the entertaining title “Teletubbies Strike Back” was published in the Land of the Rising Sun. In 1991, Murakami was offered to become a teacher at Princeton University (USA). A little later he receives the degree of associate professor. While Murakami is engaged in teaching, eight volumes of the writer’s works are being published in Japan. The collection includes all the things written by the writer over the last decade of creative activity.

Only in a foreign country did the writer have the desire to tell the world about his country, its people, traditions, and culture. It is worth noting that he did not like to do this before. Apparently, only when you find yourself far from your native country do you truly begin to appreciate it.

In 1992, Murakami moved to California, where he continued his teaching career: he lectures on modern literature at Howard Tufts University. Meanwhile, in the writer’s country, a new novel, “South of the Border, West of the Sun,” is being prepared for release. This time the author attributed something from his biography to the main character. Haruki Murakami (photos of the writer are presented in the article) wrote a story about the owner of a jazz bar.

"Aum Shinrikyo"

In 1994, the novel “The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle” went on sale. It is considered the most complex in the writer’s work: it combines many different literary forms, which are flavored with a good dose of mysticism.

In 1995, in Japan, or rather in Kobe, there was an earthquake and a gas attack by the Aum Shinrikyo sect. A year after the tragedy, Murakami returns to Japan, now living in Tokyo. Impressed by the tragedy in Kobe, he writes two documentaries - “Underground” and “The Promised Land”.

More books

Since 1999, Haruki Murakami begins to publish a book every year. A fruitful period begins in the biography of Haruki Murakami. Thus, in 1999, the novel “My Beloved Sputnik” was published, and in 2000, a collection of stories “All God’s Children Can Dance” was published.

In 2001, Haruki Murakami and his wife moved to the village of Oiso, which is located on the ocean shore, where they still live.

It is worth noting that Murakami’s works have been translated into 20 languages, including Russian. True, in Russia the author’s works are published several years (tens of years) late. Thus, only in 2002 did the novel “Wonderland Without Brakes” appear in Russian bookstores.

In 2003, Murakami visited Russia. While he was traveling, the novel Kafka on the Beach was published in Japan. It consisted of two volumes, was the tenth novel in the writer’s bibliography, and received the World Fantasy Award.

"Legends" and bestsellers

In 2005, the collection “Tokyo Legends” was published, which included not only new stories, but also those that the writer wrote back in the 80s of the last century. In 2007, the writer wrote a memoir, “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running.” When he turned 33, he quit smoking and began running, swimming and baseball. From time to time, Murakami takes part in marathons. Constant exercise became the source of inspiration that spilled out in a kind of memoir. In 2010, this book was translated into Russian.

The year 2009 was notable for the release of a new trilogy - “1Q84”. Two parts of the book were sold out literally on the first day of sales. In this novel, the author examined such topics as religious extremism, generational conflict, and the discrepancy between reality and illusions. A year later, Murakami completed the third volume - another bestseller appeared in the world.

About everything in the world

The next book was published only in 2013. It was a philosophical drama, Colorless Tsukuru and the Years of Travel. Murakami writes about a lonely engineer who designed railway stations. Like all children, in his distant childhood he had friends, but over time they began to turn away from him one by one. Tsukuru cannot understand the reason for this behavior. His new girlfriend advises him to find old acquaintances and find out everything directly.

In 2014, another interesting collection was published - “A Man Without a Woman.” In these short stories, the main characters are strange men and real femme fatales, and the main theme is the relationship between them.

Besides writing

In addition to his writing activities, Murakami was involved in translating books by European authors. It was only thanks to him that readers in Japan discovered the works of Raymond Carver, Truman Capote, John Irving, and the translation of Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye broke all sales records.

He created several photo albums and guidebooks, in which he expressed all his love and interest in Western culture. He created two volumes of the book “Jazz Portraits”, where he talked about 55 jazz performers.

Our days

In 2016, Murakami received the Literary Prize. G. H. Andersen. As they said at the award ceremony, he received the award:

"For its bold combination of classical storytelling, pop culture, Japanese tradition, fantastic realism and philosophical reflection."

Of course, it was expected that he would also be awarded the Nobel Prize, but so far this has not happened. In the meantime, he continues to write. In 2017, the novel “The Murder of the Commander” is published, and perhaps the writer will please with something in 2018, but for now it is a secret.

Perhaps the most important thing in the biography of Haruki Murakami was briefly mentioned. As you can see, writing for him really means living.

Haruki Murakami was born in Kyoto on January 12, 1949. His parents worked as teachers of Japanese literature. After Haruka's birth, the whole family moved to the major seaport of Japan - Kobe. Over time, the little boy began to develop an interest in literature, especially foreign literature.

In 1968, Murakami entered one of the most famous and prestigious universities in Japan - Waseda, where he studied at the Faculty of Theater Arts, specializing in classical drama. But studying was not a joy; it was boring for the young man, who was forced to spend days on end rereading a huge number of scripts that were kept in the museum of the institute. In 1971, he married the girl Yoko, with whom he studied together. During his training, Haruki took an active part in the anti-war movement, while opposing the Vietnam War. Despite his lack of interest in studying, Murakami was able to successfully graduate from Waseda University, receiving a degree in modern drama.

In 1974, Haruki was able to open the Peter Cat jazz bar in Tokyo, and ran the bar for 7 years. This year also marked the start of writing my first novel. The writer's desire to write this novel arose during a baseball game, when he suddenly felt that he had to do it. Although Haruka had no writing experience before this, because he believed that he was not endowed with writing talent. And in April 1974, he began writing the novel Hear the Wind Sing, published in 1979. This literary creation was awarded the Nation's Literary Award for Emerging Writers.

However, according to the author, these works were “weak” and he did not want them to be translated into other languages. But readers had a different opinion. They recognized these novels, noting that they had a personal writing style that other authors did not have. As a result, this novel was included in the “Rat Trilogy” along with the novels “Pinball 1973” and “Sheep Hunt”.

Murakami loves to travel. He spent three years in Italy and Greece. Then, upon arriving in the United States, he settled in Princeton, teaching at the local university. In 1980, Haruki had to sell his bar and began making a living from his works. When work on The Sheep Hunt was completed in 1981, he received another award. This was the beginning of his development as a writer and gaining worldwide popularity. After the novel Norwegian Wood was published in 1987, Murakami earned popular recognition. A total of 2 million copies of the novel, which was written during the writer's long journey to Rome and Greece, were sold. “Norwegian Wood” brought Murakami fame not only in Japan, but also outside of it throughout the world and is currently considered one of his best works. Also at this time, the writer finished work on his novel Dance, Dance, Dance, which became a continuation of the Rat Trilogy.

That same year, Haruki was invited to teach at the Princeton Institute in New Jersey, where he remained to live. In 1992, he began teaching at the University of California. William Howard Taft. He wrote actively during this time, producing most of the novel The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. This novel is considered the most capacious and complex of all Murakami's works.

Today, Haruki Murakami is the most popular writer in modern Japan, as well as the winner of the Yomiuri Literary Prize, which has also been awarded to such acclaimed authors as Kobo Abe, Kenzaburo Oe and Yukio Mishima. And Murakami’s works have already been translated into 20 world languages, including Russian.

He publishes about one novel a year. According to Haruka himself, he rarely returns to his books and rereads them. In Russia, the translation of his books is carried out by Dmitry Kovalenin, who published a book that tells about Murakami’s creative path, its title “Murakamidenye”.

Haruki Murakami was one of the first writers who opened the world's eyes to modern Japan, in which there is an alternative youth subculture, no different from those in London, Moscow or New York. Its main character is a lazy young man who is obsessed with finding a girl with unusual ears. He has strange eating habits. He mixes seaweed with shrimp in vinegar, roasted veal with salted plums, etc. He drives aimlessly in his car around the city and shares his “burning” questions: how can one-armed disabled people cut bread? Why is the Japanese Subaru more comfortable than the Italian Maserati? The hero is one of the last romantics and idealists, who sadly recalls unjustified hopes, but is still convinced of the power of good. He loves popular culture: David Lynch, the Rolling Stones, horror films, detective stories and Stephen King, in general, everything that is not recognized by highbrow aesthetes in the sacred intellectual bohemian circles of youth. He is closer to carefree guys and girls from disco bars, who fall in love only for a day or an hour and remember their hobbies only on a motorcycle rushing along the road. Perhaps this is why he is interested in the girl’s unusual ears, and not her eyes, because he does not want to pretend and wants to always remain himself in every situation and with absolutely any person.

At the age of 33, Haruki Murakami quit smoking and began to actively train, running many kilometers every day and swimming in the pool. After he moved to live from Japan to the West, speaking excellent English, he was the first in the history of Japanese national literature to begin to see his homeland through the eyes of a modern European. He says that after leaving his country, he suddenly wanted to write about it, about its people, about the past and present of Japan. It is easier for him to write about Japan when he is far away from it, because then he can see the country as it really is. Before that, he did not want to write about his homeland, wanting to simply share with readers thoughts about himself and his own world. Now Japan occupies a significant place in all the literary works of Haruki Murakami.