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 favourite 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Haruki Murakami Bibliography

Novels

Hear the Wind Sing / Amazon US / Amazon UK / Bookshop

Pinball, 1973 / Amazon US / Amazon UK / Bookshop

A Wild Sheep Chase / Amazon US / Amazon UK / Bookshop

Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World / Amazon US / Amazon UK / Bookshop

Norwegian Wood / Amazon US / Amazon UK / Bookshop

Dance Dance Dance / Amazon US / Amazon UK / Bookshop

South of the Border, West of the Sun / Amazon US / Amazon UK / Bookshop

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle / Amazon US / Amazon UK / Bookshop

Sputnik Sweetheart / Amazon US / Amazon UK / Bookshop

Kafka on the Shore / Amazon US / Amazon UK / Bookshop

After Dark / Amazon US / Amazon UK / Bookshop

1Q84 / Amazon US / Amazon UK / Bookshop

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage / Amazon US / Amazon UK / Bookshop

Killing Commendatore / Amazon US / Amazon UK / Bookshop

Short Stories

Yume de Aimashou /

The Elephant Vanishes / Amazon US / Amazon UK / Bookshop

After the Quake / Amazon US / Amazon UK / Bookshop

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman / Amazon US / Amazon UK / Bookshop

Men Without Women / Amazon US / Amazon UK / Bookshop

First Person Singular / Amazon US / Amazon UK / Bookshop

Non-fiction

Underground / Amazon US / Amazon UK / Bookshop

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running / Amazon US / Amazon UK / Bookshop

Absolutely on Music: Conversations with Seiji Ozawa / Amazon US / Amazon UK / Bookshop

Haruki Murakami Goes to Meet Hayao Kawai / Amazon US / Amazon UK / Bookshop

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

Links

Haruki Murakami website

References

The Running Novelist (The New Yorker)

Haruki Murakami: ‘I took a gamble and survived’ (The Guardian)

Murakami – Famous Authors

Dark master of a dream world

Nikkei Asia interviews Murakami about life as a DJ

It follows the memories of the 37 year old Toru Watanabe, who hears a cover of the song Norwegian Wood by The Beatles. Hearing this song makes Toru reminisce of the 1060s; and its here where the story takes off, with the memory of a younger Toru.

It begins with Toru’s friend Kizuki and Kizuki’s girlfriend Naoko. Toru is often the third wheel in their friendship, and he’s the one dose of reality for the couple that keeps them attached to the real world. Unfortunately, Kizuki commits suicide on his 17th birthday. Toru feels the great loss of his friend, while Naoko feels as if some part of her soul has been shattered.

Fast forward two years, and Toru is now at university, while he’s also maintained sparse contact with Naoko. One night, the two reunite to celebrate Naoko’s 20th birthday. But Naoko is feeling down and in a vulnerable state. This leads to the two sharing a moment that is never forgotten between them.

The rest of the story consists of Toru’s everyday life as a university student. There’s comic relief, by way of his roommate “Storm Trooper”, and Toru experiences many one night stands with women. Most of them introduced by his charismatic campus buddy, Nagasawa. Who’s popular with the ladies.

Toru eventually meets Naoko again, who’s staying in a mental health residency, and he’s introduced to Naoko’s mid-aged roommate Reiko, who briefs Toru on her condition. It’s during this visit that Toru and Naoko admit to their feelings for one another, and from then on, the book follows Toru’s plight of being committed to Naoko.

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It’s difficult to really explain what’s so enthralling about Norwegian Wood, because much of its appeal is delivered through its subtext and prose. Although the story doesn’t seem like much on the surface, Murakami touches on a number of important themes throughout. Everything in this book speaks to the soul of the reader, from the dialogue, to the prose and to the subtle things that the narrator points out without explicitly saying it.

But why is this a great book to read while depressed? I mean, obviously it deals with matters of dating, mental health, suicide. But if it was just that, surely those themes would be enough to put the reader in a deeper slump than before? But no – I think what really made this book help me through my down time, was the way in which it tells such ordinary life stories, while putting forward the idea that life is equally as painful and mundane for anyone who breathes.

Haruki Murakami is one of few writers who I feel has the ability to speak directly to my soul with everything he writes, and that’s why I cannot get enough of his work. The level of ambiguity in which he approaches his stories is the exact amount that I crave in my books. He provides a surface level story to consume that is layered with deep subtext that pings my subconscious mind.

But if you’re someone who expects your novels to wrap everything up at the end, with not an ounce of open-endedness, then you should prepare to not get everything you were looking for from Norwegian Wood. It’s just not that kind of book. This is a book that touches on complex themes while offering beautiful prose that paints in the vintage 1960s Tokyo lifestyle. Norwegian Wood is a statement about love and life. And it will go down as one of my all-time favourite books.

When I saw that some of his books were on the mysticism and supernatural side, my plan was to leave those for last, because it was Murakami’s ability to give meaning to ordinary life situations that attracted me the most. This led me to Sputnik Sweetheart, which appeared to be a story about love.

In Sputnik Sweetheart, we see through the eyes of the narrator, known only as K. Most of the book is about K’s observations of his best friend Sumire, that he’s also madly in love with. Sadly, Sumire does not hold mutual love for K and instead views him as a friend that she can share her innermost thoughts with. K chooses to not share his feelings with Sumire, but he hints at the concept while masking it in humour a number of times.

Sumire is an inspiring novelist in her mid-20s who is struggling to pen her first notable work. She soon falls in love with a woman named Miu who is seventeen years her senior. This is the first time Sumire has been sexually drawn to anyone, and it’s an obsession that leads to her leaning many new things, including life skills. Sumire ends up working as Miu’s assistant and things get spicy when she tags along on a work trip.

K is forced to witness these events as he lives his own life as a newly qualified elementary school teacher.

On the surface level it sounds like such a basic story, but Murakami has the ability to peel so many different layers of his characters to the point that there’s so much depth behind every word. The writing in Sputnik Sweetheart is easy to follow, but at the same time it’s riddled with metaphors that you may only catch if you’re looking for them.

You could read Sputnik Sweetheart through and interpret it as a story about love, loss and rejection. But you could also read it through and think of it as a spiritual story that shows the separation people between two different dimensions.

Murakami’s power is in allowing the reader to interpret his stories in their own way. It’s ambiguous in ways that serve the readers’ own level of understanding. This is something hard to do without seeming pretentious, but Murakami pulls it off effortlessly.

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Sputnik Sweetheart left me wanting more of Haruki Murakami, and I now understand what all the praise is about. I just may have found a new favourite author.

In Men Without Women: Stories, Japanese author Haruki Murakami highlights different men with different kinds of relationships with women. Some of these men are widowed, married, divorced, or single. Each story is completely disconnected from the last, with the only reoccurring theme being their relationships (or friendships) with women.

What Murakami is a master of, is creating subtext. With such short stories, you begin to feel like you know a decent amount about these characters, even though the author is pretty ambiguous when writing about them. We typically get some kind of background about the characters, but there are also many things about them that are merely hinted at. It’s reading through the story that really fills in the blanks in your mind, and allows you to understand the meaning based on your own life experiences.

The types of relationships featured in these stories include a male widow who confesses to his female driver about his dead wives’ lovers on the side. A young student who allows his friend to go on a date with his girlfriend, knowing that something may happen between them. A cosmetic surgeon who sleeps with multiple married women. A disabled man who enjoys hearing stories from his female care worker and more.

Before reading this, the book can sound simple in concept, but the amount of depth in each story will play on your emotions. Sure, the male to female connections are the forefront of the book’s theme, but beyond that theme, there’s so much substance about life in Japan itself.

Men Without Women: Stories is written so beautifully that it flows like water. Even as a slow reader, I found myself able to fly through the stories without exerting much reading effort. The translators Philip Gabriel and Ted Goossen really did a superb job.

Men Without Women: Stories may also shred any enthusiasm you had about the concept of marriage. The book is full of infidelity and the author normalizes it to the point you begin to think marriage is simply about committing adultery and trying to get away with it. It makes me wonder if this is the common marital experience for Japanese people, or whether it’s merely based on human nature and the basic sexual desires all people have.

The book’s final passage contains an incredible quote that stings the soul of any single male reading the book. “Losing one woman means losing all women.” This quote resonates because it sums up the empty feeling that one can feel after losing someone they love. Your life begins to feel hopeless, like you’ll never experience the joys of sharing life with a female companion again.

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On Goodreads, I initially scored Men Without Women: Stories 4/5, but this book has left such a lasting impression on me that I’m tempted to bump it up to a 5. It’s one of those books I’m going to remember for a long time and I would recommend it to anyone.