My favorite writer Haruki Murakami

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My favorite writerHaruki Murakami
8 A Bitelyova Oksana
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Murakami Haruki is the man who writes books like
a jazz composer. Delicatedly he places the words
and sentences, like a composer writing a score.
Although he writes about deep human emotions, he
keeps the music in perfect rhythm and control,
just like an orchestra conductor. His stories
have longing and nostalgy. His stories will
surprise you.
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Murakami was born 1949 in Kyoto. His father, a
son of a Buddhist priest, and his mother taught
Japanese literature. It is said that his family
had strong traditions. After all, he grew up in
the post-war period. The reader can understand
that Murakami must have been frustrated with the
atmosphere in Japan at that time. In Norwegian
Wood he wrote about the political atmosphere in
the dormitory, which the main character couldn't
be careless of. Maybe, this is why he read so
many foreign books, especially European writers,
such as Checkhov, Dickens, Flaubert. In Wild
Sheep Chase there is also a sense that you read
American detective stories.
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In his novel South of the Border, West from the
Sun his character falls in love while listening
to Nat King Cole's old scratched LP. Norwegian
Wood was named after the beatles' song. His
insights to music have always been influencing
his works. It seems that he also has a talent for
lyric writing.
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Haruki Murakami married Yoko Takahashi in 1971.
Soon after that they started to save money to
open a Jazz club. It was named Peter Cat after
their pet. He got his degree in 1975 while his
wife got hers in 1972. they say that those days
influenced his beautifully paced story in South
of the Border, West from the Sun, which he wrote
almost twenty years later.
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Eventually, the Murakamis' decided to sell the
Jazz club as his short stories got a success. He
started to work as a translator of foreign
literature into Japanese, such as books of
Fitzgerald, or Carver. Its said that it's much
due to his translation skill that authors like
Fitzgerald are so famous in Japan. After Raymond
Carver's death in 1987, Haruki Murakami wrote,
"Raymond Carver was no doubt the most valuable
teacher I have ever had, and also the greatest
literary friend".After a few years, Murakami's
works became more independent, and there was more
room for his elaborate improvisation. If
literature be jazz, he started to move more
freely to the improvised zone. There is a natural
rhythm, that comes naturally. He doesn't plan the
next page, he just lets it come.
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Perhaps the most ultimate achievement of this
trend would be Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the
End of the World, a surreal, contemporary, and
pop novel. Many people say they cannot understand
it, but perhaps it wasn't made to be understood.
Murakami uses his peculiar sense of humour for
pacing his stories, often repeating lines of his
characters. Theres also dark humour in
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World.
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It was the time around 1988 when he published
Dance Dance Dance. Sales of Norwegian Wood
had risen to millions. Murakami said he found the
new situation of being famous uncomfortable.
During the times when Norwegian Wood got so
enormously famous, he lived a simple life in
Italy with his wife. When coming back, he found
that storm of fame in his country. Eventually
they escaped to Europe, and then went to the USA
in early 90's, at that time he wrote South of
the Border, West from the Sun, and Wind Up Bird
Chronicle. He might have been missing his life
in Japan. He must have missed the old nostalgic
time of gentle afternoons, jazz pieces and his
simple life back then. Wind Up Bird Chronicle
instead is a totally different story, it's a book
of Japan's recent history and it's complications.
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Haruki Murakami is perhaps the most known
contemprary writer in Japan. His works had an
enormous fame abroad, especially in Russia, the
country of Tolstoy, where "Sputnik Sweetheart"
was very well received. Regardless of his
accomplishments, he seems rather a reluctant
celebrity. In March 2006, it was announced that
Haruki Murakami would be the Kafka prize winner
of the year 2006. The Kafka prize ceremony took
place in October 2006. in his speech at the
ceremony, he said Kafka was one of the most
influenced novelists when he was young, and that
it was one of the main reason for him to attend
the prize ceremony.
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1979 Hear the Wind Sing 1980 Pinball, 1973 1982
A Wild Sheep Chase 1985 Hard-Boiled Wonderland
and the End of the World 1987 Norwegian Wood 1988
Dance Dance Dance 1992 South of the Border, West
of the Sun 1992-1995 The Wind-Up Bird
Chronicle 1997 Underground (non fiction) 1998
The Place That Was Promised (Sequel to
Underground) (non fiction) 1999 Sputnik
Sweetheard 2002 Kafka on the Shore 2004 After
Dark (English version due to 2007) 2006 Blind
Willow, Sleeping Woman (Collection of Murakami's
short stories)
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Questions
where was Haruki Murakami born?What kind of
music does Haruki Murakami like?In what country
is Haruki Murakami living now?when was Haruki
Murakami born?What did Haruki Murakami open in
1974?In what year did he publish his book
Listen to song of the wind?In what year did
he finish the novel Dance Dance Dance?What did
Haruki Murakamis father do?In what genres does
Haruki Murakami write?
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