Murakami's Well

Summary:

Haruki Murakami, arguably the most internationally-acclaimed contemporary Japanese writer, has created a series of stories and novels that have gained much attention across the globe. In "Murakami's Well", his stories are contextualised and discussed by translators and friends.

Additional Credits and Funding:

Technical assistance by Chris Cuttress.
artwork by Hank Mann

Tones:

Contemplative, Engaging

Description:

"The thing about Murakami that everybody seems to share even though nobody has come up with a final answer as to what it is about him that has caught on or what they like so much but there's this sense that he does something weird to your brain."
- Jay Rubin, English translator

Haruki Murakami, a Japanese writer of increasing renown, is arguably the most internationally-acclaimed contemporary Japanese writer. In 2006, he was awarded the Franz Kafka prize for Literature. Both a cafe in Kiev and a cannabis-laced cocktail at a Moscow bar have been named after him.

He has been translated into three dozen languages. Murakami himself has translated many of the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Raymond Carver, Truman Capote, John Irving, and Paul Theroux, among others, into Japanese.

His book Underground, a haunting exploration into the sarin gas poisonings of the Tokyo subway, is a non-fiction illustration of the characters who people Murakami's long and short fiction. Adrift in the world, these characters speak to us of what it is to be human.

According to a New York Times review, Murakami "is like a magician who explains what he's doing as he performs the trick and still makes you believe he has supernatural powers .."

Descend with producer Teresa Goff into "Murakami's Well."
 

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