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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.
A surreal and fractured dose of storytelling that only Murakami cold write. -- Graham Morrison, five stars * Linux Voice * A surreal and fractured dose of storytelling that only Murakami cold write. -- Graham Morrison, five stars * Linux Voice * It’s pure, uncut Murakami. * Business Insider * Murakami's magnum opus * Japan Times * 1Q84 has a range and sophistication that surpasses anything else in his oeuvre. It is his most achieved novel; an epic in which form and content are neatly aligned... So like Murakami himself, I'll borrow from Orwell: 1Q84 is quite simply doubleplusgood * Independent on Sunday * 1Q84 reads like a cross between Stieg Larsson and Roberto Bolaño... In its bones, this novel is a thriller * Daily Telegraph * A surreal twist on the formula of David Nicholl's One Day; fate preventing two soulmates from getting together from getting together for decades... Stieg Larsson enthusiasts may enjoy the novel too as Aomame could be Lisbeth Salander's Japanese cousin... What makes Murakami cool as well as popular is has metaphysical mischievousness, his playing around with the idea of alternate realities... Every time you open 1Q84, you get the sensation of falling down the rabbit hole, into a unique and addictive world * Sunday Express * 1Q84 is an extraordinary feat of sustained imagination * Evening Standard * [One of] .. the best books to really get your teeth into this winter... Part thriller, part love story, the first print run sold out in one day in the author's native Japan * Grazia * A whole host of Murakami icons from talking cats to one-way portals all contribute to this rich and often perplexing mix. But ultimately, 1Q84 is a simple love story that ends on a metaphysical cliff-hanger... a delicious paranormal stew * Independent on Sunday *
