About the Author: Haruki Murikami

5 Facts

-Born 1949, Kyoto, Japan
-Heavily Influenced by Western Culture.
-Highly criticised by Japan's literary establishment.
-Very reclusive, gives few interviews and upon gaining mainstream fame within Japan after the release of Norwegian Wood, decided to emigrate.
-Keen runner and swimmer having completed marathons and triathlons.

5 Motifs

-Wells
-Music; particularly Jazz and Classical.
-Trains
-Parallel worlds
-The Moon/The Night Sky

5 Characters

-Creta Kano
-Ushikawa
-Tengo Kwana
-May Kashara
-Noboru Wataya

5 Themes

-Alienation
-Fatalism
-Collective guilt and trauma
-Memory
-Time

5 Works

-After Dark
-1q84
-The Wind Up Bird Chronicles
-Norwegian Wood
-Going Underground

Immediately I am much more drawn to Murikami than my other two others. I am very interested in working with the recurring themes of alienation and fatalism within an often surreal setting and find Murikami's approach to this much more engaging than Kafka's. This is due to how it feels less inward looking given the fact that Kafka's work was driven by his own self doubt,guilt and general neurosis where as Murikami seems more influenced by a personal contentedness in solitude.

I think visually his combination of the overly mundane with flares, sometimes subtle sometimes very full on, of the surreal could result in a very varied and deep body of practical work. Furthermore I think that the ambiguous nature nature of much of his work is something I could tap in to visually, carrying on from my explorations with ambiguous imagery last year.

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