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1. As a 1,000-page Murakami work obtains a new German translation, DW talked to translator Ursula Gräfe to find out what makes Japanese authors so appealing. Fish falling from the sky and human-animal hybrids are just some of the “normal” occurrences in Haruki Murakami’s novels. With his best-selling titles translated in around 50 languages, the celebrated Japanese novelist has millions of fans worldwide.
2. Though the Kyoto-born writer is not the first Japanese author to have enjoyed success outside of his native land — Yasunari Kawabata and Kenzaburo Oe were both Noble laureates — Murakami has drastically transformed the image of Japan’s literature around the world, prompting a strong demand for Japanese novels in translation.
3. For Ursula Gräfe, who has translated many of Murakami’s books — including a new German version of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle that was just published in October — Japanese novels often depict a society “that is different from our own, but which is struggling with similar problems. Murakami is one of the pioneers who paved the way for this kind of literature,” she told DW.
Have you read any of Haruki Murakami’s novels? Which one was your favorite? Is there another Japanese author that you recommend? Why do you recommend this author?
Why Murakami is particularly appealing to German readers
4. Murakami entered the literary mainstream in 1987 with Norwegian Wood, a nostalgic love story set in 1960s Tokyo. The novel weaves in classic Murakami themes such as loneliness, loss, nostalgia and boredom. Murakami’s protagonists often have an unconventional lifestyle, characters who are estranged from “stable” relationships, such as the traditional family. While Norwegian Wood was hugely popular in Japan, European readers recognized themselves in those universal experiences, too.
5. And German readers might have an “additional and special understanding” of Murakami’s writings, according to Gräfe: “Growing up in Japan’s postwar society had a strong impact on Murakami,” the translator says. “The rejection of national traditions and history and a turn towards a new and more liberal lifestyle, in which American music played a big part, is an experience Japan and Germany share.”
6. Beyond that, the unpredictability of certain elements in Murakami’s narratives “makes up a large part of his charm” for European readers, who “feel drawn to the flowing interaction between different worlds, the continuum of all things, Murakami’s natural take on the seemingly unreal,” says Gräfe.
Japanese culture is now popular in many foreign countries. What foreign culture is popular in Japan? Why is it popular here? Are you a fan of this culture?
7. Following Murakami’s success, many recent Japanese bestsellers in Europe also feature elements of magical realism and oddities, giving the impression that readers desire to see the Japanese as just that — odd, different, peculiar. But as Gräfe points out, it is often forgotten that Murakami’s literary style is actually a peculiarity in Japanese culture; magical realism rather emerged in Latin American literature.
8. Marie Claire Lukas from Dumont, Murakami’s German publisher, attributes the success of Japanese literature in Germany to the “rising popularity of Japanese culture in general” in the country. Gräfe admits that the Japanese works that are selected to be translated contribute to reinforcing certain stereotypes about Japan, and to the phenomenon of fetishizing Japanese “culture” through literature. “But this is true of any translated literature,” she adds. “It is the trap laid out for us when we read (or translate) foreign literature.”
9. “Japan is an island far away from Europe, so it makes an ideal screen for projections. Many different images of Japan have been conjured up by the needs of the Western psyche, from the lovely lotus land of Giacomo Puccini’s Madame Butterfly to the weird and alienated neon playground of Tokyo in Sophia Coppola’s Lost in Translation,” Gräfe said. Still for Gräfe, this phenomenon does not directly apply to Murakami’s works, as he managed to appeal to readers not through exotic depictions of Japan, but rather by combining familiar and unfamiliar elements in his works. Fortunately, since the “popular Western images of Japan” have been changing over the past decades, European readers now have access to a wider variety of voices, points out Gräfe.
How has Japanese culture changed within Japan in the last few decades? Has your image of Japan changed in your lifetime?
Phonetic Chart
