Haruki Murakami Biography
Murakami was
born in Kyoto in 1949 and
graduated from the Waseda
University, Tokyo, in 1975. He
and his wife lived in Europe and
the United States from 1986 to
1995 before returning to Tokyo.
He did not write his first
novel, Hear the Wind Sing
(1979, translated 1987) until he
was in his thirties. His major
breakthrough came in 1987 with
the publication of Norwegian
Wood - a coming of age story
named after the Beatles' song,
which is somewhat different to
his other books in that it is
written in a realistic style,
whereas his other books all have
strong fantasy elements.
In addition to writing his own
books in Japanese, Murakami is a
skillful translator of English
works into Japanese, including
books by F. Scott Fitzgerald,
Raymond Carver, John Irving and
Paul Theroux.
Partial Bibliography
Novels
- The Trilogy of the Rat:
Hear the Wind Sing (1979), Pinball, 1973 (1980), A Wild Sheep Chase (1982)
- The Hard-boiled
Wonderland and End of the
World, 1985
- Norwegian Wood,
1987
- Dance, Dance, Dance
(1993)
- The Wind-up Bird
Chronicle (1994)
- South of the Border,
West of the Sun (1999)
- Sputnik Sweetheart
(1999)
- Kafka on the Shore
(2002)
- After Dark (2004
- English translation by Jay
Rubin 2006)
Non Fiction
- What I Talk About When I Talk About Running - memoir (2008)
- Underground (2000)
Collections
- The Elephant Vanishes
(1993)
- After the Quake
(2002)
- Vintage Murakami
(2004)
- Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman (2006)
This biography was last updated on 01/20/2011.
A note about the biographies
We try to keep BookBrowse's biographies both up to date and accurate. However, with over 2000 lives to keep track of it's inevitable that
some won't be as current or as complete as we would like. So, please help us - if the information about a particular author is out of date,
inaccurate or simply very short, and you know of a more complete source, please let us know. Authors and those connected with authors:
If you wish to make changes to your bio, please send your complete biography as you would like it displayed so that we replace the old with the new, including your website URL if relevant.
