Murakami reads new short story at Tokyo event
Only 1,100 lucky audience members were there to hear Haruki Murakami’s new, still-unpublished short story “Kaho” read aloud by the bestselling Japanese author himself.
The reading took place at a book event on Friday night called “The Owl Reads in Spring,” a fundraiser for the Waseda International House of Literature library at Murakami’s alma mater Waseda University in Japan’s capital Tokyo. Another awardwinning author, Mieko Kawakami, was also featured at the event.
“It’s freshly made, only about 10 days ago,” Murakami told the audience, adding that he wrote it for the event. The last short story he released was “First Person Singular” more than three years ago.
Murakami, looking relaxed and dressed in sneakers, jeans and a dark jacket, said writing a story for recitation was “actually quite hard.”
“Its content and style have to fit recitation, and it has to be relatively short,” he added.
But the story came out too long, said the author, who read it in two parts at the event.
Journalists at the event were allowed to report story names but not their content.
Now 75 and one of the world’s most popular and acclaimed novelists, Murakami debuted with “Hear the Wind Sing” in 1979, four years after he began writing while running a jazz bar in Tokyo. His 1987 romantic novel “Norwegian Wood” was his first bestseller, establishing him as a young literary star.
His latest bestselling novel, “The City and its Uncertain Walls,” was published in 2023 in Japan and is awaiting an English release.
Besides novels, his prolific literary work includes essays, nonfiction pieces and translations.
The Owl event is a second for him and Kawakami, who said she was a longtime Murakami fan from years before she became a novelist. The two took turns reading aloud at a 2019 event where Murakami unveiled an earlier short story, “Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey,” later published as part of the short story collection “First Person Singular.”
Kawakami, known for her bestseller “Breasts and Eggs,” which was translated into English in 2020, recited her new short story “Watashitachi no Doa” (Our Doors) at Friday’s event.
Her first novella, “My Ego, My Teeth and the World,” was published in 2007, and her novel “Heaven” was shortlisted for the 2022 International Booker Prize.