In 1978 Haruki Murakami was 29 and running a jazz bar in downtown Tokyo. One April day the
impulse to write a novel came to him suddenly while watching a baseball game. That first novel
Hear the Wind Sing won a new writers¿ award and was published the following year. More
followed including A Wild Sheep Chase and Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World but
it was Norwegian Wood published in 1987 which turned Murakami from a writer into a
phenomenon. His books became bestsellers were translated into many languages including
English and the door was thrown wide open to Murakami¿s unique and addictive fictional
universe. Murakami writes with admirable discipline producing ten pages a day after which he
runs ten kilometres (he began long-distance running in 1982 and has participated in numerous
marathons and races) works on translations and then reads listens to records and cooks. His
passions colour his non-fiction output from What I Talk About When I Talk About Running to
Absolutely On Music and they also seep into his novels and short stories providing quotidian
moments in his otherwise freewheeling flights of imaginative inquiry. In works such as The
Wind-Up Bird Chronicle 1Q84 and Men Without Women his distinctive blend of the mysterious and
the everyday of melancholy and humour continues to enchant readers ensuring Murakami¿s place
as one of the world¿s most acclaimed and well-loved writers.
