Ryū Murakami

Template:Nihongo is a Japanese novelist, essayist and filmmaker. His novels explore human nature through themes of disillusion, drug use, surrealism, murder and war, set against the dark backdrop of Japan. His best known novels are Almost Transparent Blue, Audition, Coin Locker Babies, and In the Miso Soup.

Biography

Murakami was born Template:Nihongo in Sasebo, Nagasaki on 19 February 1952. The name Ryūnosuke was taken from the protagonist in Daibosatsu-tōge, a work of fiction by Template:Ill.

Murakami attended school in Sasebo. While a student in senior high, he joined in forming a rock band called Coelacanth, as the drummer.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In the summer of his third year in senior high, Murakami and his fellow students barricaded the rooftop of his high school and he was placed under house arrest for three months. During this time, he had an encounter with hippie culture, which had a strong influence on him.

After graduating from high school in 1970, Murakami formed another rock band and produced some 8-millimeter indie films.<ref name="ft.com">Template:Cite web</ref> He enrolled in the silkscreen department at Gendaishichosha School of Art in Tokyo, but dropped out in the first year. In October 1972, he moved to Fussa, Tokyo and was accepted for the sculpture program at Musashino Art University. He married his wife, a keyboard player, in the 1970s and their son was born in 1980.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In the early 1990s, Murakami devoted himself to disseminating Cuban music in Japan and established a label, Murakami's, within Sony Music.

Murakami started the e-magazine JMM (Japan Mail Media) in 1999 and still serves as its chief editor. Since 2006, he has also hosted a talk show on business and finance called Kanburia Kyuden, broadcast on TV Tokyo.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The co-host is Eiko Koike. In the same year, he began a video streaming service, RVR (Ryu's Video Report). In 2010, he established a company, Template:Ill, to sell and produce eBooks.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Works

File:Рю Мураками.jpg

Murakami's first work was the short novel Almost Transparent Blue, written while he was still a university student.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> It deals with promiscuity and drug use among disaffected youth. Critically acclaimed as a new style of literature, it won the Gunzo Prize for New Writers in 1976, despite some objections on the grounds of decadence. Later the same year, his Blue won the Akutagawa Prize,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> going on to become a bestseller.<ref name="ft.com"/>

In 1980, Murakami published a much longer novel, Coin Locker Babies, again to critical acclaim, and won the 3rd Noma Liberal Arts New Member Prize. Coin Locker Babies, became a popular novel among Japanese punks and alienated youths.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Next came the autobiographical novel 69, and then Ai to Gensō no Fascism (1987), revolving around the struggle to reform Japan's survival-of-the-fittest society with a secret "Hunting Society".Template:Clarify His work Topaz (1988) concerns a sado-masochistic woman's radical expression of her sexuality.

Murakami's The World in Five Minutes From Now (1994) is written as a point of view in a parallel universe version of Japan, and was nominated for the 30th Tanizaki Prize. In 1996 he continued his autobiography 69, and released the Murakami Ryū Movie and Novel Collection. He also won the Taiko Hirabayashi Prize. The same year, he wrote the novel Topaz II about a female high school student engaged in "compensated dating", which later was adapted as the live-action film Love & Pop by anime director Hideaki Anno. His Popular Hits of the Showa Era concerns the escalating firepower in a battle between five teenage male and five middle-aged female social rejects. Literary scholar Barbara Greene suggests that the text reveals how "the invisible violence of post-Bubble Japan’s social order is made explicit through a low-stakes, yet hyperviolent, guerilla war undertaken by a set of ludicrous and narcissistic characters whose increasingly deadly attacks are met with public indifference. Within the consumer-capitalist social order, personal satisfaction is the paramount goal..."<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

In 1997 came the psychological thriller novel In the Miso Soup, set in Tokyo's Kabuki-cho red-light district, which won him the Yomiuri Prize for Fiction that year. Parasites (Kyōsei chū, 2000) is about a young hikikomori fascinated by war. It won him the 36th Tanizaki Prize. The same year Exodus From Hopeless Japan (Kibō no Kuni no Exodus) told of junior high school students who lose their desire to be involved in normal Japanese society and instead create a new one over the internet.<ref name="ft.com"/>

In 2001, Murakami became involved in his friend Ryuichi Sakamoto's group NML No More Landmines, which sets out to remove landmines from former battle sites around the world.

In 2004, Murakami announced the publication of 13 Year Old Hello Work, aimed at increasing interest in young people who are entering the workforce. Hantō wo Deyo (2005) is about an invasion of Japan by North Korea. It won him the Noma Liberal Arts Prize and Template:Ill.

The novel Audition was made into a feature film by Takashi Miike. Murakami reportedly liked it so much he gave Miike his blessing to adapt Coin Locker Babies. The screenplay for the latter was worked on by director Jordan Galland but Miike failed to raise enough funding for it. An adaptation directed by Michele Civetta is currently in production.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>Template:Update inline

In 2011, Utau Kujira won the Template:Ill.

Selected bibliography

Novels

Year	Japanese Title	English Title	Notes
1976	Template:Nihongo	Almost Transparent Blue	English translation by Nancy Andrew
1977	Template:Nihongo	War Begins Beyond the Sea	French translation by Claude Okamoto
1980	Template:Nihongo	Coin Locker Babies	English translation by Stephen Snyder, republished by Pushkin Press, 2013
1983	Template:Nihongo	All Right, My Friend
1985	Template:Nihongo	Melancholy of Tennis Boy
1987	69 Shikusuti Nain	69	English translation by Ralph F. McCarthy, published by Pushkin Press, 2013
	Template:Nihongo	Fascism of Love and Fantasy
1989	Template:Nihongo	Raffles Hotel
1991	Template:Nihongo	Cocksucker Blues
	Template:Nihongo	Superconduction Nightclub
1992	Template:Nihongo	Ibiza
	Template:Nihongo	Nagasaki Holland Village
1993	Template:Nihongo	Ecstasy
	Template:Nihongo	Fijian Midget
	Template:Nihongo	368Y Par4 the 2nd shot
	Template:Nihongo	The seashore of the music
1994	Template:Nihongo	Popular Hits of the Showa Era: A Novel	English translation by Ralph F. McCarthy. Published by Pushkin Press, 2013
	Template:Nihongo	The World in Five Minutes From Now
	Template:Nihongo	Piercing	English translation by Ralph F. McCarthy. Published in English January 2007.
1995	KYOKO	Kyoko	French translation by Corinne Atlan
1996	Template:Nihongo	Hūga Virus: The World in Five Minutes From Now II
	Template:Nihongo	Melancholia	French translation by Sylvain Cardonnel
	Template:Nihongo	Love & Pop: Topaz II
1997	Template:Nihongo	Audition	English translation by Ralph McCarthy.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Spanish translation by J.C. Cortés.
	Template:Nihongo	Strange Days
	Template:Nihongo	In the Miso Soup	English translation by Ralph F. McCarthy. Published in English 2005.
			French translation ("Miso Soup") by Corinne Atlan. Published in French January 2003.
1998	Template:Nihongo	Lines	French translation ("Lignes") by Sylvain Cardonnel, Czech translation ("Čáry") by Jan Levora.
2000	Template:Nihongo	Parasites	French translation by Sylvain Cardonnel
	Template:Nihongo	Exodus of the country of hope
2001	Template:Nihongo	Thanatos
	THE MASK CLUB	The Mask Club
	Template:Nihongo	The Last Family
2005	Template:Nihongo	From the Fatherland, with Love	Translated into English by Ralph McCarthy, Charles De Wolf and Ginny Tapley Takemori, published by Pushkin Press, 2013
2010	Template:Nihongo2	A Singing Whale<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
2011	Template:Nihongo	My Love is Beneath You
2015	Template:Nihongo	Old Terrorist

Short story collections

Year	Japanese Title	English Title	Notes
1984	Template:Nihongo	Tropical Sad	reissued under the new title of "Summer in the city" in 1988.
1986	Template:Nihongo	POST, Room with Pop Art
	Template:Nihongo	Run! Takahashi	a series of novels about one baseball player
	Template:Nihongo2	New York City Marathon
1988	Template:Nihongo	Topaz
	Template:Nihongo	The collection of the Ryū Murakami dish novels
1991	Template:Nihongo	Love is always strange
1995	Template:Nihongo	The collection of the Ryū Murakami movie novels
1996	Template:Nihongo	Monica - Dream of a musician, story of a novelist	Joint work with Ryuichi Sakamoto
1997	Template:Nihongo	Swan
1998	Template:Nihongo	Truth of a cup of wine
2003	Template:Nihongo
	Template:Nihongo		renamed to Template:Nihongo in the paperback edition
2007	Template:Nihongo	The privileged mistress gastronomy: The collection of Ryū Murakami dish & sensuality novels
2012	Template:Nihongo	Hello Life from 55 years old
2016		Tokyo Decadence: 15 Stories	A collection of stories from several of Murakami's story collections, translated by Ralph McCarthy. Spanish translation by J.C. Cortés

English short stories

Year	Japanese Title	English Title	Notes
2004		It's Been Just a Year and a Half Now Since I Went with My Boss to That Bar	short story published in Zoetrope: All-Story (Vol. 8, No. 4, 2004). English translation by Ralph McCarthy.<ref name="Zoetrope">Template:Cite web</ref>
2005		I am a Novelist	short story published in The New Yorker (Jan. 3, 2005). English translation by Ralph McCarthy
2009		At the Airport	short story in Zoetrope All-Story (Vol. 13, No. 2, 2009). English translation by Ralph McCarthy.<ref name="Zoetrope"/>
2010		No Matter How Many Times I Read Your Confession, There's One Thing I Just Don't Understand: Why Didn't You Kill the Woman?	Zoetrope All-Story (Vol. 14, No. 4, 2010).<ref name="Zoetrope"/>
2011		Penlight	Zoetrope All-Story (Vol. 15, No. 3, 2011). English translation by Ralph McCarthy.<ref name="Zoetrope"/>

Non-fiction and essays

Year	Japanese Title	English Title	Notes
1985	Template:Nihongo	American Dream
1987	Template:Nihongo	Every Man is a Consumable	Vol.1–11 (1987–2010)
1991	Template:Nihongo	All the Ryū Murakami essays 1976-1981
	Template:Nihongo	All the Ryū Murakami essays 1982-1986
	Template:Nihongo	All the Ryū Murakami essays 1987-1991
1992	Template:Nihongo
1993	Template:Nihongo	To you who don't want to exist as "an ordinary girl."
1996	Template:Nihongo	Tokyo Story after you go away
1998	Template:Nihongo	Murder in a lonely country
	Template:Nihongo	Physical Intensity	Vol.1-5 (1998–2002)
1999	Template:Nihongo	From the Lonely country to far-off world soccer
2000	Template:Nihongo	The love that anyone can do
2001	Template:Nihongo	Useless Woman
2002	Template:Nihongo	I studied economics so as not to be deceived: Ryū Murakami weekly report
	Template:Nihongo	Involuntary celibacy
	Template:Nihongo	From macro, Japanese economy to micro, yourself: Ryū Murakami weekly report
2003	Template:Nihongo	SEX is better than Suicide: Ryū Murakami's theory of love and woman
2006	Template:Nihongo	Am I spoiling myself? 27 years old, female office worker
	Template:Nihongo	The collection of Ryū Murakami literary essays
2007	Template:Nihongo	Unexpectedly, I'm a shopping lover
2008	Template:Nihongo	Still I want to love, want to be happy, and also want money
2009	Template:Nihongo	Encouragement of having no hobby
2010	Template:Nihongo	Old and middle age who run away, youths with few wants
2012	Template:Nihongo	Debris is buried under the cherry tree.

Interviews and letters

Year	Japanese Title	English Title	Notes
1977	Template:Nihongo2	Kenji Nakagami vs Ryū Murakami: Our ship unmoors in a stagnant fog	with Kenji Nakagami
1981	Template:Nihongo2 Wōku donto ran Murakami Ryū vs Murakami Haruki	Walk, Don't Run: Ryū Murakami vs Haruki Murakami	with Haruki Murakami
1985	Template:Nihongo2	EV.Cafe ultra-Darwinism	with Ryuichi Sakamoto
1992	Template:Nihongo2	See you, my friend	Ryū Murakami = Ryuichi Sakamoto letters
1994	Template:Nihongo2	Ryū Murakami + Noi Sawaragi Latest Discussion: God is in the details	with Noi Sawaragi
1999	Template:Nihongo2	Ryū Murakami interview collection: The Unbearable Salsa of Being
2006	Template:Nihongo2	Dialogue to stare at "individual": Ryū Murakami X Joichi Ito

Picture book

Year	Japanese Title	English Title	Notes
1983	Template:Nihongo2	Picture book: All Right, My Friend	Illustrator: Katsu Yoshida
1989	Template:Nihongo2		Illustrator: Sumako Yasui
1996	Template:Nihongo2	Wonderful Jennifer	Illustrator: Yoko Yamamoto
1999	Template:Nihongo2	What were we able to buy with that money?: Bubble Fantasy	Illustrator: Yuka Hamano
2000	Template:Nihongo2	The Straight Story	picture book of the movie (director: David Lynch) of the same title, Illustrator: Yuka Hamano
2001	Template:Nihongo2	The old man goes to the mountain for money-making. The investment occasionally produces hope.	Illustrator: Yuka Hamano
2003	Template:Nihongo2	Hello Work for 13 years old	Illustrator: Yuka Hamano
	Template:Nihongo2	Postman	Illustrator: Yuka Hamano
	Template:Nihongo2	Shield	Illustrator: Yuka Hamano

Filmography

Year	Japanese Title	English Title	Role	Director
1979	限りなく透明に近いブルー Kagirinaku tōmei ni chikai burū	Almost Transparent Blue	Novel, Scriptwriter, Director	Ryū Murakami
1983	だいじょうぶマイ・フレンド Daijōbu mai furendo	All Right, My Friend	Novel, Scriptwriter, Director	Ryū Murakami
1989	ラッフルズホテル Raffuruzu Hoteru	Raffles Hotel	Novel, Director	Ryū Murakami
1992	トパーズ Topāzu	Topaz a.k.a. Tokyo Decadence	Novel, Scriptwriter, Director	Ryū Murakami
1996	ラブ＆ポップ Rabu & Poppu	Love & Pop	Novel	Hideaki Anno
1999	オーディション Ōdishon	Audition	Novel	Takashi Miike
2000	KYOKO	Because of You	Novel, Scriptwriter, Director	Ryū Murakami
2001	走れ！イチロー Hashire! Ichirō	Run! Ichiro	Novel	Kazuki Ōmori
2003	昭和歌謡大全集 Shōwa kayō daizenshū	Karaoke Terror: The Complete Japanese Showa Songbook	Novel	Tetsuo Shinohara
2004	シクスティナイン Shikusutinain	69	Novel	Lee Sang-il
2006	ポプラル！ Popuraru!	Popular!	Executive Producer	Jen Paz
2018	ピアッシング Piasshingu	Piercing	Novel	Nicolas Pesce

External links

• "Murakami Ryū" (The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction; by Jonathan Clements)
• Template:Isfdb name
• Ryu Murakami at J'Lit Books from Japan
• Synopsis of Leave the Peninsula (Hanto o Deyo) at JLPP (Japanese Literature Publishing Project)
• REVIEW : Ryu Murakami - From the Fatherland With Love at Upcoming4.me
• Ryu Murakami at the IMDb