Here's something I found online about a Japanese writer whose work I really like:



It's the birthday of the novelist Haruki Murakami, born in Kyoto, Japan (1949). He is best known in America as the author of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (1995).

Murakami is the child of Japanese literature teachers, but he was more interested in American literature as a boy. He studied literature and drama at Waseda University and Tokyo, and after graduation, Murakami operated a jazz bar called "Peter Cat" in Tokyo for eight years.

During this time Murakami became familiar with Western music, and that is why so many of his novels have musical themes.

Murakami did not write at all until after age thirty. He claims that he was inspired to write his first novel Hear the Wind Sing (1979) while watching a baseball game. He worked on the novel for many months, usually after finishing his workdays at the jazz club, and the finished book had short chapters and a fragmented style. Murakami sent the novel to a writing contest and won first prize.

In 1987, Murakami published Norwegian Wood and became popular in his home country, so he left Japan and traveled through Europe before coming to America. He taught at Princeton University and Tufts University and published two more novels. After a gas attack on a Tokyo subway in 1995, Murakami returned to Japan and his writing became less comedic and more serious.

Haruki Murakami said, "I have drawers in my mind, so many drawers. I have hundreds of materials in these drawers. I take out the images and memories that I need."