Novelist as a Vocation

NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER - An insightful look into the mind of a master storyteller--and a unique look at the craft of writing from the beloved and best-selling author of 1Q84, Norwegian Wood, and What I Talk About When I Talk About Running.

"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" --New York Times Book Review

A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK: Esquire, Vulture, LitHub, New York Observer

Aspiring writers and readers who have long wondered where the mysterious novelist gets his ideas and what inspires his strangely surreal worlds will be fascinated by this engaging book from the internationally best-selling author. Haruki Murakami now shares with readers his thoughts on the role of the novel in our society; his own origins as a writer; and his musings on the sparks of creativity that inspire other writers, artists, and musicians.

Here are the personal details of a life devoted to craft: the initial moment at a Yakult Swallows baseball game, when he suddenly knew he could write a novel; the importance of memory, what he calls a writer's "mental chest of drawers"; the necessity of loneliness, patience, and his daily running routine; the seminal role a carrier pigeon played in his career and more.

"What I want to say is that in a certain sense, while the novelist is creating a novel, he is simultaneously being created by the novel as well." --Haruki Murakami

Author: Haruki Murakami
Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
Published: 11/08/2022
Pages: 224
Weight: 0.9lbs
Size: 8.20h x 5.90w x 1.10d
ISBN: 9780451494641


Review Citation(s):
Library Journal Prepub Alert 06/01/2022 pg. 13
Publishers Weekly 09/12/2022
Kirkus Reviews 09/15/2022
Library Journal 10/01/2022 pg. 141
Booklist 11/01/2022 pg. 202
Shelf Awareness 12/16/2022
BookPage 11/01/2022

About the Author
HARUKI MURAKAMI was born in Kyoto in 1949 and now lives near Tokyo. His work has been translated into more than fifty languages, and one of the most recent of his many international honors is the Cino Del Duca World Prize, whose previous recipients include Jorge Luis Borges, Ismail Kadare, Mario Vargas Llosa, and Joyce Carol Oates.