Japan for the Uninvited

Haruki Murakami is Japan’s most famous living author, whose most successful writing playfully combines mundane people and surreal situations

The humour and pathos of his 1987 breakthrough, ‘Norwegian Wood’, gained him international praise and recognition.

As an inevitable side-effect of his popularity, his work is rejected as “pop literature” by the literary establishment.

He frequently writes essays about modern Japan and Japanese culture, including best-selling non-fiction based on two real tragedies: the Kobe earthquake (’After the Quake’), and the Tokyo subway sarin gas attack (’Underground’).

• Exorcising Ghosts: Haruki Murakami resources in English
• The Guardian: ‘Haruki Murakami: Marathon man’
• Salon: Haruki Murakami interview

Popularity: 2% [?]