Haruki Murakami is one of those rare authors who feels less like a writer and more like a quiet, invisible companion. Through his novels, essays, and short stories, he has become a voice that resonates across languages, cultures, and generations. His works—translated into 50 languages and read by millions—carry a certain weightlessness, a subtle yet profound presence, like a melody that lingers long after the song has ended.
He is one of my favorite authors, and I’ve written here before about Kafka on the Shore, 1Q84, and Men Without Women. His stories have a way of weaving themselves into your life, lingering in the corners of your mind. In 2023, he was awarded the Princess of Asturias Prize for Literature—a deserved honor, though I doubt it would mean much to him. Murakami doesn’t strike me as someone who writes for trophies. I like to think that what matters most to him is knowing that his words have connected with someone, somewhere—that his stories have found a home in the hearts of his readers.
By now, the Nobel Prize for him feels like the unattainable sixth World Cup championship for us Brazilians. It’s something people expect, something people clamor for, but in truth, it’s unnecessary. Both Murakami and the Brazilian national team exist on a level where recognition, while prestigious, doesn’t change anything. It’s not about the accolades; it’s about what they’ve already given the world.
Murakami’s brilliance lies in the simplicity of his prose, the way he creates an entire world with words that feel unassuming yet effortlessly alive. His stories slip between reality and fantasy, moving fluidly from the mundane to the surreal. Lost cats, jazz, lonely hearts, dystopian landscapes, parallel universes—they all exist within the same space, side by side, as if they’ve always belonged together. His writing doesn’t just tell stories; it whispers truths about the human experience, sometimes so softly you don’t realize it until the words echo back to you later.
And yet, for all his global recognition, the book that has shaped me the most isn’t one of his iconic novels. It’s Novelist as a Vocation. There’s something about that book—its honesty, its quiet confidence, its deep belief in the act of writing—that has stayed with me. It’s one of the main reasons I’m here, on this platform, writing short stories, screenplays, and anything else that finds its way onto the page. Reading it felt like receiving permission—not from Murakami, but from myself—to embrace this path, wherever it leads.
It’s remarkable to think he started writing at 30, as though he had spent those years gathering the world around him, quietly preparing. Fame came with his fifth novel, Norwegian Wood, in 1987, but he has never been confined by his nationality or his origins. Though deeply Japanese, his work transcends cultural boundaries, capturing global shifts and shared emotions that feel universal.
What strikes me most about him isn’t just the stories he tells but the space he creates within them. His worlds are both vast and intimate, like sitting alone in a quiet room and feeling, somehow, that you are not alone. His stories reflect life’s contradictions—the strange mix of beauty and loneliness, the dance between the familiar and the unknowable. In his hands, even the ordinary becomes extraordinary, and even the extraordinary feels like it might just be real.
All I can say is, Thank you, Murakami. Thank you for the worlds you’ve created, for the way you’ve reminded us that reality and imagination are not opposites but companions, two sides of the same coin. Thank you for Novelist as a Vocation, which has become a quiet compass for me, guiding me as I stumble forward, learning what it means to write and why I keep doing it.
ありがとうございます (arigatou gozaimasu).
Image Courtesy of Murakami’s WebSite
