Murakami Haruki is one of the most well-regarded yet controversial authors in contemporary Japanese literature. Being the son of two literature professors in postwar Japan, his writing covers a variety of topics from politics, economics, and pop culture. Before he is the author we know now, he dabbled in translation work for Western novels such as F. Scott Fitzgerald’s
The Great Gatsby and Raymond Chandler’s
The Long Goodbye. Murakami kept a sense of Japanese locality in his novels with a Western atmosphere which is the base of the paradoxical East-West. For Western readers, the text offers a unique read with a slight touch of nostalgia and for Japanese readers it is a familiar setting with an unexpected twist. Initially aspiring to become an international writer, Murakami soon realized that he had to find his voice in Japanese literature eventually leading him to his unique style of magic realism or whatever.
