Dear readers, Few writers have the gravitational pull of Haruki Murakami. He was, in large part, the introduction to Japanese literature for a global audience, and has sold tens of millions of books over the decades. He was in New York recently for some rare public appearances, and my colleague Alexandra Alter took the opportunity to interview him. Appropriately for a story involving Murakami, their conversation led them into some subterranean, dreamlike territory. “While I’m writing, strange things happen very naturally, very automatically,” he said of his process. Murakami recently finished a new novel, after a long illness. “It’s kind of a resurrection,” as he described it. “I came back.” The book, which is currently being translated into English, felt different from his previous work: It’s more optimistic, he said, and breaks ground as his first novel written primarily from a woman’s perspective. I didn’t know much about Murakami’s early years as a novelist, and was somewhat surprised to learn that he was once a pariah in Japan. Critics felt his writing was too influenced by Western literature, and too juvenile and simplistic. That’s softened by now, after nearly 50 years. These days, Murakami no longer feels like such an outsider at home. “I got older, and people respect old men,” he said. Touché! See you on Friday.
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