The World of Murakami

 Murakami continues to be a global sensation with new book.

Words Thomas Patrick
Illustration Martina Reyes
May 27, 2025

Last year, Haruki Murakami released the English translation of his latest novel, The City and Its Uncertain Walls, and, as with his previous books, it became a big event for readers across the globe. This is because Murakami continues to sit in a very unusual space in the publishing industry, as he has an international success that few novelists can ever aspire to. Yet, he remains a divisive writer with many detractors, especially among the critics in his home country of Japan. 

In 2014, Murakami called himself “[the] outcast of the Japanese literary world” even though his books sell very well in the country. Outcast he may be, but for many, he has led the charge of Japanese literature’s increasing popularity worldwide and has become a global household name. With the release of his latest novel at the age of 75, Murakami is showing no signs of slowing down. 

The story of how Murakami became a writer has become something of a legend across the publishing industry. As a 29-year-old jazz café owner, Murakami decided to write a novel after watching a game of baseball in 1978. As he outlined in his non-fiction book Novelist as a Vocation, “In that instant, and based on no grounds whatsoever, it suddenly struck me: I think I can write a novel.” Writing on his kitchen table after work, that first novel would be Hear The Wind Sing, published in 1979, and it would win the 22nd Gunzo Prize for New Writers and be nominated for The 81st Akutagawa Prize, setting Murakami on his new career. 

From that first novel onwards, Murakami has maintained a strong work ethic and produced fifteen novels and many more short stories, essays, and non-fiction pieces, making him one of the most consistently successful modern writers. His novels Norwegian Wood, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, and Kafka on the Shore have all been recognized as modern classics and part of the modern literary canon. 

Yet despite this acclaim, Murakami remains a mystery to his readers. Unlike most authors who use social media and video interviews to drum up publicity, Murakami has managed to remain very private. Though he grants interviews with newspapers and magazines, there is no video of him speaking about his work. Most of what we know of Murakami has come from his autobiographical works What I Talk About When I Talk About Running and Novelist as a Vocation. The small portrait of Murakami, in his own words, is of a very ordinary man who happens to be one of the world’s most popular novelists. This juxtaposition is very reminiscent of the protagonists of his fiction who find their mundane lives disrupted by an extraordinary, often magical, event. 

Despite his enormous success, Murakami remains a divisive writer in both Japan and across the world. To his fans, he offers a unique insight into Japanese life, deftly combining the mundane with magical realism. His recurring themes of loneliness, memory, and love, both lost and gained, have connected with readers of all ages who also appreciate his pop culture references, particularly related to music, and the detail he goes into when describing what his characters eat. When readers come to a new Murakami novel or short story, they know exactly the type of story they are getting. This is why his detractors consider him a one-trick writer who relies on the same tropes, and the reviews for his latest books usually highlight themes and plots similar to those of his previous work. His treatment of women has also come under fire from some quarters due to the majority of his main characters being men and the sexualization of the women in his novels. While many of these criticisms are valid, the fact that Murakami has constantly stuck to his own style has endeared him to his readers. In Novelist as a Vocation, he emphasizes that he only writes the books he wants to write and doesn’t write fiction for any outside commitment or deadline.

With The City and Its Uncertain Walls, Murakami has repurposed a 1980 novella that appeared in a prestigious Japanese literary magazine. However, due to his dissatisfaction with the work, he refused to publish it as a book. The plot follows a middle-aged man looking back on his life and lost love as he explores an alternative spirit-like city. To some, it is a complete retread of his earlier novels, but to his many fans, it is another precious opportunity to escape into a Murakami world. By creating a body of work with similar narratives, characters, and worlds, Murakami has kept his readers engaged and wanting more, which is why he continues to be such a global sensation.