more photos (2)

Haruki Murakami’s Followers (132,945)

Add New
Videos

Why should you read “Kafka on the Shore”?

1 comment

Haruki Murakami

Born

in Fushimi-ku, Kyoto, Japan

January 12, 1949

Website

https://harukimurakami.com/

Genre

Fiction, Surrealism, Magical Realism

Influences

Franz Kafka, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Francis Scott Fitzgerald, Salinger, Ra ...more

edit data

Haruki Murakami (村上春樹) is a Japanese writer. His novels, essays, and short stories have been best-sellers in Japan and internationally, with his work translated into 50 languages and having sold millions of copies outside Japan. He has received numerous awards for his work, including the Gunzo Prize for New Writers, the World Fantasy Award, the Tanizaki Prize, Yomiuri Prize for Literature, the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, the Noma Literary Prize, the Franz Kafka Prize, the Kiriyama Prize for Fiction, the Goodreads Choice Awards for Best Fiction, the Jerusalem Prize, and the Princess of Asturias Awards.
Growing up in Ashiya, near Kobe before moving to Tokyo to attend Waseda University, he published his first novel Hear the Haruki Murakami (村上春樹) is a Japanese writer. His novels, essays, and short stories have been best-sellers in Japan and internationally, with his work translated into 50 languages and having sold millions of copies outside Japan. He has received numerous awards for his work, including the Gunzo Prize for New Writers, the World Fantasy Award, the Tanizaki Prize, Yomiuri Prize for Literature, the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, the Noma Literary Prize, the Franz Kafka Prize, the Kiriyama Prize for Fiction, the Goodreads Choice Awards for Best Fiction, the Jerusalem Prize, and the Princess of Asturias Awards.
Growing up in Ashiya, near Kobe before moving to Tokyo to attend Waseda University, he published his first novel Hear the Wind Sing (1979) after working as the owner of a small jazz bar for seven years. His notable works include the novels Norwegian Wood (1987), The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (1994–95), Kafka on the Shore (2002) and 1Q84 (2009–10); the last was ranked as the best work of Japan's Heisei era (1989–2019) by the national newspaper Asahi Shimbun's survey of literary experts. His work spans genres including science fiction, fantasy, and crime fiction, and has become known for his use of magical realist elements. His official website cites Raymond Chandler, Kurt Vonnegut and Richard Brautigan as key inspirations to his work, while Murakami himself has named Kazuo Ishiguro, Cormac McCarthy and Dag Solstad as his favourite currently active writers. Murakami has also published five short story collections, including First Person Singular (2020), and non-fiction works including Underground (1997), an oral history of the Tokyo subway sarin attack, and What I Talk About When I Talk About Running (2007), a memoir about his experience as a long distance runner.
His fiction has polarized literary critics and the reading public. He has sometimes been criticised by Japan's literary establishment as un-Japanese, leading to Murakami's recalling that he was a "black sheep in the Japanese literary world". Meanwhile, Murakami has been described by Gary Fisketjon, the editor of Murakami's collection The Elephant Vanishes (1993), as a "truly extraordinary writer", while Steven Poole of The Guardian praised Murakami as "among the world's greatest living novelists" for his oeuvre.
...more

0 posts
Haruki Murakami's Blog

Haruki Murakami isn't a Goodreads Author (yet), but they do have a blog, so here are some recent posts imported from their feed.

Haruki Murakami hasn't written any blog posts yet.

Combine Editions
Haruki Murakami’s books

Average rating: 3.93 · 4,229,288 ratings · 363,386 reviews · 611 distinct works • Similar authors

	Norwegian Wood 3.99 avg rating — 728,707 ratings — published 1987 — 14 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami, Philip Gabriel (Translator) 4.12 avg rating — 548,093 ratings — published 2002 — 301 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	1Q84 (1Q84, #1-3) by Haruki Murakami, Jay Rubin (Translator), Philip Gabriel (Translator) 3.95 avg rating — 339,724 ratings — published 2009 — 154 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami, Jay Rubin (Translator) 4.14 avg rating — 314,717 ratings — published 1994 — 118 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	What I Talk About When I Talk About Running 3.87 avg rating — 203,203 ratings — published 2007 — 22 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage 3.87 avg rating — 202,874 ratings — published 2013 — 200 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	After Dark 3.74 avg rating — 188,714 ratings — published 2004 — 204 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami, Philip Gabriel (Translator) 3.83 avg rating — 181,076 ratings — published 1999 — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami, Alfred Birnbaum (Translator) 4.11 avg rating — 152,453 ratings — published 1985 — 226 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	South of the Border, West of the Sun by Haruki Murakami, Philip Gabriel (Translator) 3.85 avg rating — 150,631 ratings — published 1992 — 218 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Haruki Murakami…

Series by Haruki Murakami

1Q84 (3 books)
by

Haruki Murakami,

村上春樹

3.97 avg rating — 468,119 ratings

ねじまき鳥クロニクル (3 books)
by

Haruki Murakami,

هاروكي موراكامي,

محمد عبد العاطي عبد الخير (Translator)

4.14 avg rating — 318,572 ratings

The Rat (4 books)
by

Haruki Murakami,

Alfred Birnbaum (Translator)

3.86 avg rating — 332,369 ratings

騎士団長殺し [Kishidancho Goroshi] (2 books)
by

Haruki Murakami

3.95 avg rating — 110,767 ratings

ねじまき鳥クロニクル (2 books)
by

Haruki Murakami,

هاروكي موراكامي,

محمد عبد العاطي عبد الخير (Translator)

3.96 avg rating — 2,636 ratings

More series by Haruki Murakami…

Need another excuse to treat yourself to a new book this week? We’ve got you covered with the buzziest new releases of the day, according to early...

Polls

Please vote for the book you'd like to read as a group in March 2010

Little Bee by Chris Cleave

13 votes, 17.8%

Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami

9 votes, 12.3%

Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane

7 votes, 9.6%

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

7 votes, 9.6%

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

5 votes, 6.8%

A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick

5 votes, 6.8%

The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt

4 votes, 5.5%

Three Weeks with My Brother by Nicholas Sparks

4 votes, 5.5%

The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry

3 votes, 4.1%

Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

3 votes, 4.1%

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

2 votes, 2.7%

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

2 votes, 2.7%

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan

2 votes, 2.7%

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

2 votes, 2.7%

Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson

2 votes, 2.7%

The Caller by Alex Barclay

1 vote, 1.4%

Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls

1 vote, 1.4%

Fear Nothing by Dean Koontz

1 vote, 1.4%

Fireproof by Raj Kamal Jha

0 votes, 0.0%

73 total votes

1 comment

More...

Topics Mentioning This Author

topics	posts	views	last activity
The Book Challenge: Sarah's 2008 Book Challenge v2.0 - Fini!	5	1855	29 déc. 2008 18:31
The Rory Gilmore ...: Favorite Reads of 2008	29	3196	08 jan. 2009 14:23
The Next Best Boo...: Group Read Nominations for February IS CLOSED!	95	580	29 jan. 2009 05:35
The Next Best Boo...: OFFICIAL WINTER CHALLENGE - 2008/2009	2155	4187	04 mar. 2009 16:03
The Next Best Boo...: HELLO!!! We have our winners for May!!!	283	962	01 mai 2009 02:02
Chicks On Lit: Author Talk	81	350	08 juin 2009 20:50
SciFi and Fantasy...: July Sci-Fi Book Please See Posts#1-#14-#26	73	649	14 juin 2009 12:22