Haruki Murakami: A Look at His Profilic Writing Career

Everyone has a book in them. Every man and woman should write and publish a book in their lifetime. Or so they say. But that process of writing and publishing a book is an uncomfortable challenge. It’s a beast that must be conquered. Despite this, Haruki Murakami has published a few dozen books since his first one in 1979. One of his well-documented secrets is running. Murakami believes that running (and swimming) every day builds the mental and physical strength needed to have a successful writing career. One that has seen him sell millions of copies worldwide.

But what are the origins of his writing journey? Today, we dive deeper into the life and times of Haruki Murakami.

The origins of Haruki Murakami

Haruki Murakami was born in Kyoto, Japan during the post-World War II baby boom in 1949. Murakami is an only child, raised in Nishinomiya, Ashiya, and Kobe. Growing up, Murakami inherited his father’s traumas from the war, as his father served in the Japanese army. In later years, his father would pray every day for the lives that were lost during the war.

Murakami once overheard a story from his father about Japanese soldiers decapitating Chinese captives. Murakami was haunted by the visions of his father’s story for a long time, and couldn’t recall whether his father had told the story from the viewpoint of carrying out the decapitation, or as someone who witnessed it. Determined to learn more about his father’s role in the war, Murakami later dug into the family history and was relieved to find out that his father wasn’t part of the documented Nankin massacre. The event involved a six-week mass murder of Chinese civilians in 1937, carried out by the Japanese army.

Being an only child, Murakami deeply internalized his father’s PTSD and trauma from the war. His father’s trauma became his trauma. And this deeply affected how Murakami came to process the world around him.

Despite this, Murakami had many distractions during his upbringing. He was deeply immersed in Western culture. He enjoyed Russian and American music and had a thirst for Western literature. Some of his favorite Western authors include Kurt Vonnegut, Charles Dickens, Gustave Flaubert, and Franz Kafka. His taste for Western literature would later give birth to his unique style of writing.

Meeting his Wife Yoko

Murakami went on to study theater arts at Waseda University in Tokyo. And it was here where he met Yoko. The two of them were students in the same class. For a long time, Murakami and Yoko would swap knowledge with one another.

We were sitting next to each other during our first class. We were in different majors at Waseda University but we were in the same class. She asked me a lot of questions and she taught me a few things. We got to know each other through such exchanges.
Haruki Murakami

Murakami didn’t know it then, but Yoko would end up becoming his wife. Haruki Murakami and Yoko would marry in 1971. Together, they made the decision to not have children. He later related this decision to the guilt he felt about his bloodline, due to the fact that his father had participated in atrocities against China.

In Murakami’s writing memoir Novelist as a Vocation, he talks about how Yoko is an essential part of his editing process. She is always the first to read his work and give feedback. Having his wife proofread his work only makes it more powerful. Her perspective is greatly valued.

Haruki Murakami's Jazz Club — Peter Cat Jazz Club was once at this location

Murakami’s days as a jazz club owner

Shortly before finishing his studies, Murakami would make a bold move and open his own coffee house and Jazz bar in 1974. The club was called Peter Cat, and he and Yoko would run the business together.

Murakami’s love of Jazz would grow deeper, as he collected many classic Jazz vinyl records for his club. He would sit and absorb the music for hours and think deeply about life. He often observed his customers and thought about the lives they lived. At times he would immerse himself in a novel while playing Jazz in the background, creating the perfect euphoric ambiance. He was gradually developing the mind of an artist, but his only focus was running his club. Murakami was not a creator yet.

Murakami would run the Jazz Club from 1974 to 1981. The music still plays a huge part in his life today, as he hosts a live radio broadcast on Tokyo FM once a month. He was once limited to the customers who turned up in his cafe, but now he gets to share his love of the music with the world.

The moment it all changed. Murakami becomes an author.

One incredible moment would spark Haruki Murakami’s desire to write. He previously had no desire to pick up a pen. But one eventful day would become his calling. In April 1978, Haruki Murakami was watching a baseball game with his wife. The Yakult Swallows were facing the Hiroshima Carp, and one of the U.S born players, Dave Hilton, hit the ball way out into the left field. As the ball flew through the air, an incredible realization materialized in Murakami’s head. He realized in that moment that he could write a novel. He described this moment as a warm sensation that he could feel in his heart.

“It was very strange,” Murakami says about this event. “My customers didn’t believe it. My wife was so surprised. I had no ambition to be a writer because the books I read were too good, my standards were too high. But that’s what happened. I bought pens and papers and started to write that day.”

Murakami worked on Hear the Wind Sing for ten months in brief stretches during the night after working at the bar. When he completed the story, he sent it to a literary contest and won the first-place prize. This out-of-the-gate success encouraged him to continue writing.

Murakami’s early successes

Haruki Murakami’s success with Hear the Wind Sing encouraged him to continue writing. The story follows the life and times of an unnamed narrator as he struggles with his writing. He begins telling the story of when he was a student, which leads to some captivating stories involving himself and his friend The Rat.

Murakami chose to continue writing about his unnamed protagonist in his next two works, forming what would become the Trilogy of The Rat. The second book, Pinball, 1973 would release in 1980, and it contains themes of loneliness, companionship, and destiny.

In 1981, Murakami co-wrote an unrelated short story collection called Yume de Aimashou with author Shigesato Itoi. But in 1982, Haruki Murakami would write the third book in The Rat trilogy, and this book would become critically acclaimed. That book was A Wild Sheep Chase.

A Wild Sheep Chase adds layers of complexity to Haruki’s storytelling. This is perhaps the book that gave birth to his famed ambiguous style of writing that leads much up to the imagination. The book is a quasi-detective tale where the narrator is sent a photo from his long-lost friend The Rat. The narrator publishes this photo—which includes a photo of a mutated sheep with a star on its back—and is contacted by a representative of The Boss, a revered Japanese figure. The Boss’ secretary tells him that his agency must immediately cease publication of the photo. He is then threatened and given an ultimatum to find the sheep or face dire consequences. This sets off a chain of engrossing events that encapsulate an array of emotions throughout the book’s journey.

This book allowed readers to fall in love with Murakami’s unorthodox style of writing in which resolution is less of a priority. It’s the emotional experience that the story presents that is his true gift. The art is in the journey the characters take, and how they reflect on relatable aspects of life. His writing is known for its surreal, dreamlike quality and its themes of alienation and loss.

Norwegian Wood is a classic book from Murakami

Other celebrated titles from Haruki Murakami

Following on from his success with The Trilogy of the Rat, Murakami published Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World in 1985. The book pushes the magical realism aspect of his writing further, being set in a surreal version of Tokyo. The book features a character known as a Dreamreader, who can interpret people’s dreams.

Murakami would see major breakthrough success when he published Norwegian Wood in 1987. Norwegian Wood tells the story of a college student named Toru Watanabe who is torn between his love for two women. The book is set in 1060s Tokyo and holds themes of love, loss, and mental health. The book also touches on the cultural and political changes in Japan during the 1960s, showing how these changes affect the lives of people. Following the release of Norwegian Wood, the previously unknown Murakami would be mobbed by fans at airports.

In 1995, Murakami would release The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, a story about Toru Okada who is trying to locate his missing wife and cat. This sends him down a surreal path where he begins to discover a web of lies and secrets that connect his ordinary life to the violent history of Japan. It is one of Murakami’s most socially conscious works up til this point in his career. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle won Murakami The Yomiuri Prize for Literature.

Haruki Murakami had spent a number of years traveling Europe and the United States. In January 1995, the Great Hanshin Earthquake shook the region of Hanshin in Japan. A few months later, The Tokyo subway sarin attack took place in Tokyo. In order to come to terms with these events, Murakami wrote his first non-fiction bodies of work titled Underground and After the Quake. Underground consists of interviews of victims of the gas attack.

Sputnik Sweetheart was released in 1999. Followed by another of Murakami’s beloved classics, Kafka on the Shore in 2002. Kafka on the Shore follows two parallel plots: one involving teenager Kafka Tamura and one involving Nakata, an elderly man with the ability to talk to cats. The lives of Kafka and Nakata intersect in strange and unsuspected ways as the book explores themes of identity and fate. It’s a complex and multi-layered novel with many elements at play.

More of Murakami’s works are listed below.

The importance of running in Haruki Murakami’s life

Haruki Murakami is an experienced marathon runner. He started running at the age of 33 as a way to stay healthy despite the hours he spent sitting down and working. Not only does running have serious health benefits, but running each day also provides the repetitive structure and mental fortitude needed to write and publish so many books. Taking up this new habit also pushed him to quit smoking.

Quitting smoking was also like a symbolic gesture of farewell to the life I used to lead.
Haruki Murakami in The New Yorker

Building a new pattern of life for himself, Murakami would follow a set daily routine of waking up before 5 a.m. and going to bed before 10 p.m. When he is actively working on a piece of writing, he wakes up at 4 a.m. and writes for five to six hours. He follows his writing with ten kilometers of running and/or fifteen hundred meters of swimming. He then reads and listens to music for the rest of his evening.

Murakami has followed this routine religiously. Citing that it has also ruined some relationships with friends who don’t understand why he turns down their invitations. His defense is that he also has a responsibility to satisfy his millions of readers around the world, and this routine is what allows him to keep doing it.

“People are offended when you repeatedly turn down their invitations. But, at that point, I felt that the indispensable relationship I should build in my life was not with a specific person but with an unspecified number of readers.”
Haruki Murakami in The New Yorker

Running is an intensely physical activity, whereas writing is a test of the mind. For some, it might not be obvious to see how one affects the other. Some may wonder how the act of running can aid writing consistency. When asked about this, Murakami said that to be able to write every day for three years, you have to be physically strong. “Physically and mentally you have to be strong.”

In an interview with The Guardian, he went on to give a profound metaphor about how his running gives him the strength to open the big, heavy door to go into that other room.

“Every day I go to my study and sit at my desk and put the computer on. At that moment, I have to open the door. It’s a big, heavy door. You have to go into the Other Room. Metaphorically, of course. And you have to come back to this side of the room. And you have to shut the door. So it’s literally physical strength to open and shut the door. So if I lose that strength, I cannot write a novel any more. I can write some short stories, but not a novel.”

It’s clear that to have the type of career that Murakami has had, sacrifices must be made. A writer of this magnitude is likely unable to binge 12-hour shows on Netflix and go clubbing every Friday. Not to say that it can’t happen, but churning out this many quality books shows a form of mental discipline that must be worked hard on to achieve.

Murakami describes his relationship with running extensively in his memoir What I Talk About When I Talk About Running.

Novelist as a Vocation / Amazon US / Amazon UK / Bookshop

Haruki Murakami’s writing style proves that less is more

Many see perfect prose as an amalgamation of complex wording and phrasing that paints a picture. And while many wordsmiths can produce impressive sentences out of obscure words, Murakami instead focuses on simplicity with his word choices. He is able to do more with less. He has mastered writing with clarity whilst simultaneously conveying a number of emotions. In his latest memoir offering, Novelist as a Vocation, Murakami describes how he first developed his unique style while writing Hear the Wind Sing.

After struggling to come up with something satisfying, Murakami decided to write the opening of his story in English. He admits that his English composition was limited by his vocabulary at the time as he didn’t have the best grasp of English syntax. “I could only write in short, simple sentences.”

But instead of scrapping the page, like the ones he had already scrapped before it, Murakami analyzed his text further. He noted that in writing like this, the language had to be simple. And that however complex and numerous the thoughts that ran through his head were, they had to be summarised in an easy-to-digest format. It led him to the realization that he could express his thoughts and feelings with a limited set of words, as long as he could combine and link them together in a skillful manner.

Murakami then took his English composition and translated it back into Japanese, forming his own brand of Japanese prose that was unique from traditional Japanese fiction writing. Murakami would continue to write Hear the Wind Sing in his new Japanese voice. It set the foundations for what became his globally recognized style.

Haruki Murakami also works as a translator. Translating both his own works into English and the works of various beloved authors into Japanese. Murakami is closely involved in translations of his work into English, encouraging adaptations of his texts to be inclusive of Western realities, rather than being a direct word-for-word translation.

If you’ve read a body of work by Haruki Murakami then you’ll understand the man’s gift of being able to make you feel something deeply without many convolutions of words. Whether positive or negative, the emotions seem to radiate off of the page itself.

The stories just flow, giving readers a new lens through which to look at life and its many complexities.