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Haruki Murakami

Born

in Fushimi-ku, Kyoto, Japan

January 12, 1949

Website

https://harukimurakami.com/

Genre

Fiction, Surrealism, Magical Realism

Influences

Franz Kafka, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Francis Scott Fitzgerald, Salinger, Ra ...more

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Haruki Murakami (村上春樹) is a Japanese writer. His novels, essays, and short stories have been best-sellers in Japan and internationally, with his work translated into 50 languages and having sold millions of copies outside Japan. He has received numerous awards for his work, including the Gunzo Prize for New Writers, the World Fantasy Award, the Tanizaki Prize, Yomiuri Prize for Literature, the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, the Noma Literary Prize, the Franz Kafka Prize, the Kiriyama Prize for Fiction, the Goodreads Choice Awards for Best Fiction, the Jerusalem Prize, and the Princess of Asturias Awards.
Growing up in Ashiya, near Kobe before moving to Tokyo to attend Waseda University, he published his first novel Hear the Haruki Murakami (村上春樹) is a Japanese writer. His novels, essays, and short stories have been best-sellers in Japan and internationally, with his work translated into 50 languages and having sold millions of copies outside Japan. He has received numerous awards for his work, including the Gunzo Prize for New Writers, the World Fantasy Award, the Tanizaki Prize, Yomiuri Prize for Literature, the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, the Noma Literary Prize, the Franz Kafka Prize, the Kiriyama Prize for Fiction, the Goodreads Choice Awards for Best Fiction, the Jerusalem Prize, and the Princess of Asturias Awards.
Growing up in Ashiya, near Kobe before moving to Tokyo to attend Waseda University, he published his first novel Hear the Wind Sing (1979) after working as the owner of a small jazz bar for seven years. His notable works include the novels Norwegian Wood (1987), The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (1994–95), Kafka on the Shore (2002) and 1Q84 (2009–10); the last was ranked as the best work of Japan's Heisei era (1989–2019) by the national newspaper Asahi Shimbun's survey of literary experts. His work spans genres including science fiction, fantasy, and crime fiction, and has become known for his use of magical realist elements. His official website cites Raymond Chandler, Kurt Vonnegut and Richard Brautigan as key inspirations to his work, while Murakami himself has named Kazuo Ishiguro, Cormac McCarthy and Dag Solstad as his favourite currently active writers. Murakami has also published five short story collections, including First Person Singular (2020), and non-fiction works including Underground (1997), an oral history of the Tokyo subway sarin attack, and What I Talk About When I Talk About Running (2007), a memoir about his experience as a long distance runner.
His fiction has polarized literary critics and the reading public. He has sometimes been criticised by Japan's literary establishment as un-Japanese, leading to Murakami's recalling that he was a "black sheep in the Japanese literary world". Meanwhile, Murakami has been described by Gary Fisketjon, the editor of Murakami's collection The Elephant Vanishes (1993), as a "truly extraordinary writer", while Steven Poole of The Guardian praised Murakami as "among the world's greatest living novelists" for his oeuvre.
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Haruki Murakami’s books

Average rating: 3.93 · 4,396,374 ratings · 384,415 reviews · 629 distinct works • Similar authors

	Norwegian Wood 3.98 avg rating — 762,819 ratings — published 1987 — 30 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami, Philip Gabriel (Translator) 4.11 avg rating — 570,615 ratings — published 2002 — 302 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	1Q84 (1Q84, #1-3) by Haruki Murakami, Jay Rubin (Translator), Philip Gabriel (Translator) 3.95 avg rating — 347,417 ratings — published 2009 — 155 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami, Jay Rubin (Translator) 4.14 avg rating — 323,437 ratings — published 1994 — 7 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	What I Talk About When I Talk About Running 3.86 avg rating — 215,335 ratings — published 2007 — 200 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage 3.87 avg rating — 208,908 ratings — published 2013 — 7 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	After Dark 3.74 avg rating — 195,641 ratings — published 2004 — 207 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami, Philip Gabriel (Translator) 3.82 avg rating — 187,370 ratings — published 1999 — 200 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami, Alfred Birnbaum (Translator) 4.11 avg rating — 156,735 ratings — published 1985 — 218 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	South of the Border, West of the Sun by Haruki Murakami, Philip Gabriel (Translator) 3.85 avg rating — 156,897 ratings — published 1992 — 8 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Haruki Murakami…

Series by Haruki Murakami

1Q84 (3 books)
by

Haruki Murakami,

村上春樹

3.97 avg rating — 479,784 ratings

ねじまき鳥クロニクル (3 books)
by

Haruki Murakami,

هاروكي موراكامي,

محمد عبد العاطي عبد الخير (Translator)

4.14 avg rating — 327,404 ratings

The Rat (4 books)
by

Haruki Murakami,

Alfred Birnbaum (Translator)

3.86 avg rating — 342,670 ratings

騎士団長殺し [Kishidancho Goroshi] (2 books)
by

Haruki Murakami

3.95 avg rating — 114,667 ratings

ねじまき鳥クロニクル (2 books)
by

Haruki Murakami,

هاروكي موراكامي,

محمد عبد العاطي عبد الخير (Translator)

3.96 avg rating — 2,714 ratings

More series by Haruki Murakami…

Need another excuse to treat yourself to a new book this week? We’ve got you covered with the buzziest new releases of the day, according to early...

Polls

January 2016 New School Group Read

1937, The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien, 366 pages

22 votes, 15.4%

1966, The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, 445 pages

21 votes, 14.7%

1915, The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, 201 pages

13 votes, 9.1%

1920, This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald, 288 pages

12 votes, 8.4%

1953, Casino Royale by Ian Fleming, 181 pages

12 votes, 8.4%

1954, Lord of the Flies by William Golding, 182 pages

12 votes, 8.4%

1985, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami, 400 pages

11 votes, 7.7%

1999, Battle Royale by Koushun Takami, 617 pages

7 votes, 4.9%

1969, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, 304 pages

7 votes, 4.9%

1939, And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie, 264 pages

7 votes, 4.9%

1998, The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, 546 pages

7 votes, 4.9%

1984, The Bone People by Keri Hulme, 450 pages

5 votes, 3.5%

1956, The Black Obelisk by Erich Maria Remarque, 448 pages

3 votes, 2.1%

1926, The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery, 218 pages

2 votes, 1.4%

1937, Christ in Concrete by Pietro Di Donato, 256 pages

1 vote, 0.7%

1957, The Assistant by Bernard Malamud, 246 pages

1 vote, 0.7%

143 total votes

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