Haruki Murakami
Japanese novelist and essayist
Haruki Murakami is a Japanese writer of novels, essays and short stories, with work translated into about 50 languages. He is also a long-distance runner who has written a memoir about it.
1 summary 22 min of listening
Japanese Born 1949 in Fushimi-ku, Japan
About Haruki Murakami
Haruki Murakami was born in Kyoto in 1949 and grew up in Ashiya, near Kobe. He later moved to Tokyo to study at Waseda University. After running a small jazz bar for seven years, he published his first novel, Hear the Wind Sing, in 1979. His notable novels include Norwegian Wood, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Kafka on the Shore and 1Q84. He has also published five short story collections and non-fiction such as Underground, an oral history covering the Tokyo subway sarin attack. His many awards include the Franz Kafka Prize, the Jerusalem Prize and the Princess of Asturias Awards. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, published in 2007, is his memoir about life as a long-distance runner.