Found in Translationharuki Murakami Writes About Love, Earthquakes and Mackerel Raining From the Sky. He Is so Famous in Japan That He Was Forced to Flee the Country, and Now the Rest of the Globe Is Fast Catching On to His Singular Vision.Stephen Phelan Travels to Tokyo for a Rare Glimpse Into the Mind and World of a Literary Genius

Summary

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ATA shrine, in a forest, on a mountain in Japan, a flustered young woman tries to describe the special appeal of Haruki Murakami 's novels. I have mentioned his name in bars, temples and beauty spots on my way across the country to interview him in Tokyo, and the reactions have been similar.

Many young Japanese say that they know Murakami 's work well, especially his popromantic blockbuster Norwegian Wood, which they poetically refer to as "A Forest In Norway" even though it was expressly named after the Beatles song. They love his books, but there is something about them which they find difficult to articulate in English.

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Found in Translationharuki Murakami Writes About Love, Earthquakes and Mackerel Raining From the Sky. He Is so Famous in Japan That He Was Forced to Flee the Country, and Now the Rest of the Globe Is Fast Catching On to His Singular Vision.Stephen Phelan Travels to Tokyo for a Rare Glimpse Into the Mind and World of a Literary Genius

Murakami writes stories that make people feel strange, and strange feelings are hard to put into foreign words. This particular girl makes a wholehearted effort. While we stand here, out of the rain, under the giant cedar trees of Togakushi, she concentrates on what Murakami means to her. After a while she says:

"I am always wanting to escape into his world."

She is unsatisfied with the translation, but I think she speaks pretty succinctly for me and the growing millions of Murakami fans who read his work in . . . among other languages . . .

Japanese, English, Taiwanese, Latvian and Hebrew. And when I meet the author a few days later, it 's obvious that he understands.

"Many people, " says Murakami, "tell me that they don 't know what to feel when they finish one of my books. Because the story w...

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