Features

Haruki Murakami’s Meaningful Metaphors

By Scott Esposito

Haruki Murakami’s plots feel like modern-day fairy tales. Scott Esposito considers how Murakami’s plots come to resemble and evoke the inner minds of his characters.

Haruki Murakami’s Supernatural War

By Katie Wadell

Ever since World War II ended, American novelists have used China, Italy, the Philippines, Dunkirk, Dresden, and many other battlegrounds to represent everything from the effect of racism on American society to the strength of the American family. Katie Wadell argues that Haruki Murakami introduces us to an altogether different warfront in novels such as The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and A Wild Sheep Chase.

A Short Guide to Murakami’s Short Fiction

By Matthew Tiffany

One of our time’s most fecund writers, Murakami has composed a dizzying array of short fiction. Here, Matthew Tiffany runs down some of the best, making an excellent starting point for those looking for an entry into Murakami’s short works.

Reviews

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman by Haruki Murakami

Review by Elizabeth Wadell
In the introduction to the English edition of his new short story collection, Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, Haruki Murakami writes: “I find writing novels a challenge, writing short stories a joy. If writing novels is like planting a forest, then writing short stories is more like planting a garden.” Yet if the individual stories are flowers in a garden, what is the collection, the mass of all these carefully planted terrains?

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman by Haruki Murakami

Review by Matthew Tiffany
The challenge in reviewing a new book by Haruki Murakami is that one has a sense of writing for a group of people who already know about his work—Murakami-fanatics, if you will—and they have preconceived notions. They’re reading the review for tidbits, excerpts, news. Like writing a review of a new Star Trek movie, you’re writing to those who want to find out how this newest installment adds to the overall, larger story.