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Novelist as a Vocation

Author Haruki Murakami
Translated by Philip Gabriel, Ted Goossen
Look inside
Hardcover
$28.00 US
Knopf
On sale Nov 08, 2022 | 224 Pages | 978-0-451-49464-1
Add to cart Add to list Exam Copies
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  • English > Comparative Literature > Literary Criticism
  • English > Comparative Literature: Asian > Japanese
  • English > Creative Writing > Fiction
  • About
  • Excerpt
  • Author
In this engaging book, famously private writer Haruki Murakami 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. 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 insightful and unique look at the craft of writing and into the mind of a master storyteller.

“Murakami has written 14 acclaimed novels, including Hear the Wind Sing, Kafka on the Shore, Norwegian Wood, and his best-selling IQ84; dozens of short stories; and over a dozen books of essays and other nonfiction. . . . Novelist is indeed his true vocation, and in this collection of 11 interconnected essays, he tells would-be fiction writers, struggling novelists, and his many devoted readers about the path he’s followed and the ideas and thoughts he’s had in the process. . . . Although this is a concrete and practical guide, as Murakami intended, it is also a fascinating personal and professional memoir.” —Marcia Welsh, Library Journal (starred review)

“In this winsome volume, one of our greatest novelists invites readers into his creative process. The result is a revealing self-portrait that answers many burning questions about its reclusive subject, like: where do Murakami’s strange and surreal ideas come from? When and how did he start writing? How does he view the role of novels in contemporary society? Novelist as a Vocation is a rare and welcome peek behind the curtain of a singular mind.” —Adrienne Westenfeld, Esquire (“The Best Books of Fall 2022”)
Writing fiction is an entirely personal process that takes place in a closed room. Shut away in a study, you sit at a desk and (in most cases) create an imaginary story out of nothing and put it in the form of writing. The formless and subjective is transformed into something tangible and objec-tive (or at least something that seeks to be objective). Defined sim-ply, this is the day-to-day work we novelists perform.I’m sure there are many people who will say, “But wait, I don’t have anything like a study.” The same was true for me when I started out writing—I had nothing resembling a study to work in. In my tiny apartment near the Hatonomori Hachiman Shrine in Sendagaya (in a building that’s since been torn down) I sat at the kitchen table late at night after my wife had gone to bed, scratching away with a pen on Japanese-style manuscript paper. That’s how I wrote my first two novels, Hear the Wind Sing and Pinball, 1973. “Kitchen-table” fiction is what I’ve dubbed these early works.

When I first started writing Norwegian Wood, I wrote at cafés in various places in Greece, on board ferry boats, in the wait-ing lobbies of airports, in shady spots in parks, and at desks in cheap hotels. Hauling around oversized, four-hundred-character- per-page Japanese manuscript paper was too much, so in Rome I bought a cheap notebook (the kind we used to call college-ruled notebooks) and wrote the novel down in tiny writing with a dis-posable Bic pen. I still had to contend with noisy cafés, wobbly tables that made writing difficult, coffee spilling on the pages, and at night in my hotel room when I’d go over what I’d written, some-times there would be couples getting all hot and heavy beyond the paper-thin walls separating my room from the room next door. Things weren’t easy, in other words. I can smile at these memories now, but at the time it was all pretty discouraging. I had trouble finding a decent place to live, and moved all over Europe, all the while continuing to work on my novel. And I still have that thick old notebook, with its coffee stains (or whatever they are; I’m not really sure about some of them).

Wherever a person is when he writes a novel, it’s a closed room, a portable study. That’s what I’m trying to say.
Copyright © 2022 by Haruki Murakami. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
© Elena Seibert
HARUKI MURAKAMI was born in Kyoto in 1949 and now lives near Tokyo. His work has been translated into more than fifty languages, and the most recent of his many international honors is the Jerusalem Prize, whose previous recipients include J. M. Coetzee, Milan Kundera, and V. S. Naipaul. Translated by Philip Gabriel and Ted Goossen.

harukimurakami.com View titles by Haruki Murakami

About

In this engaging book, famously private writer Haruki Murakami 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. 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 insightful and unique look at the craft of writing and into the mind of a master storyteller.

“Murakami has written 14 acclaimed novels, including Hear the Wind Sing, Kafka on the Shore, Norwegian Wood, and his best-selling IQ84; dozens of short stories; and over a dozen books of essays and other nonfiction. . . . Novelist is indeed his true vocation, and in this collection of 11 interconnected essays, he tells would-be fiction writers, struggling novelists, and his many devoted readers about the path he’s followed and the ideas and thoughts he’s had in the process. . . . Although this is a concrete and practical guide, as Murakami intended, it is also a fascinating personal and professional memoir.” —Marcia Welsh, Library Journal (starred review)

“In this winsome volume, one of our greatest novelists invites readers into his creative process. The result is a revealing self-portrait that answers many burning questions about its reclusive subject, like: where do Murakami’s strange and surreal ideas come from? When and how did he start writing? How does he view the role of novels in contemporary society? Novelist as a Vocation is a rare and welcome peek behind the curtain of a singular mind.” —Adrienne Westenfeld, Esquire (“The Best Books of Fall 2022”)

Excerpt

Writing fiction is an entirely personal process that takes place in a closed room. Shut away in a study, you sit at a desk and (in most cases) create an imaginary story out of nothing and put it in the form of writing. The formless and subjective is transformed into something tangible and objec-tive (or at least something that seeks to be objective). Defined sim-ply, this is the day-to-day work we novelists perform.I’m sure there are many people who will say, “But wait, I don’t have anything like a study.” The same was true for me when I started out writing—I had nothing resembling a study to work in. In my tiny apartment near the Hatonomori Hachiman Shrine in Sendagaya (in a building that’s since been torn down) I sat at the kitchen table late at night after my wife had gone to bed, scratching away with a pen on Japanese-style manuscript paper. That’s how I wrote my first two novels, Hear the Wind Sing and Pinball, 1973. “Kitchen-table” fiction is what I’ve dubbed these early works.

When I first started writing Norwegian Wood, I wrote at cafés in various places in Greece, on board ferry boats, in the wait-ing lobbies of airports, in shady spots in parks, and at desks in cheap hotels. Hauling around oversized, four-hundred-character- per-page Japanese manuscript paper was too much, so in Rome I bought a cheap notebook (the kind we used to call college-ruled notebooks) and wrote the novel down in tiny writing with a dis-posable Bic pen. I still had to contend with noisy cafés, wobbly tables that made writing difficult, coffee spilling on the pages, and at night in my hotel room when I’d go over what I’d written, some-times there would be couples getting all hot and heavy beyond the paper-thin walls separating my room from the room next door. Things weren’t easy, in other words. I can smile at these memories now, but at the time it was all pretty discouraging. I had trouble finding a decent place to live, and moved all over Europe, all the while continuing to work on my novel. And I still have that thick old notebook, with its coffee stains (or whatever they are; I’m not really sure about some of them).

Wherever a person is when he writes a novel, it’s a closed room, a portable study. That’s what I’m trying to say.
Copyright © 2022 by Haruki Murakami. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Author

© Elena Seibert
HARUKI MURAKAMI was born in Kyoto in 1949 and now lives near Tokyo. His work has been translated into more than fifty languages, and the most recent of his many international honors is the Jerusalem Prize, whose previous recipients include J. M. Coetzee, Milan Kundera, and V. S. Naipaul. Translated by Philip Gabriel and Ted Goossen.

harukimurakami.com View titles by Haruki Murakami

Additional formats

  • Novelist as a Vocation
    Novelist as a Vocation
    Haruki Murakami
    978-0-451-49465-8
    $14.99 US
    Ebook
    Knopf
    Nov 08, 2022
  • Novelist as a Vocation
    Novelist as a Vocation
    Haruki Murakami
    978-0-593-66357-8
    $30.00 US
    Large Print
    Random House Large Print
    Nov 08, 2022
  • Novelist as a Vocation
    Novelist as a Vocation
    Haruki Murakami
    978-1-5247-2183-1
    $20.00 US
    Audiobook Download
    Random House Audio
    Nov 08, 2022
  • Novelist as a Vocation
    Novelist as a Vocation
    Haruki Murakami
    978-0-451-49465-8
    $14.99 US
    Ebook
    Knopf
    Nov 08, 2022
  • Novelist as a Vocation
    Novelist as a Vocation
    Haruki Murakami
    978-0-593-66357-8
    $30.00 US
    Large Print
    Random House Large Print
    Nov 08, 2022
  • Novelist as a Vocation
    Novelist as a Vocation
    Haruki Murakami
    978-1-5247-2183-1
    $20.00 US
    Audiobook Download
    Random House Audio
    Nov 08, 2022

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    978-0-8041-7372-8
    $18.00 US
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    Vintage
    Oct 03, 2017
  • Wind/Pinball
    Wind/Pinball
    Hear the Wind Sing and Pinball, 1973 (Two Novels)
    Haruki Murakami
    978-0-8041-7014-7
    $17.00 US
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    Vintage
    May 03, 2016
  • Hear the Wind Sing
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    978-0-8041-6677-5
    $10.00 US
    Audiobook Download
    Random House Audio
    Aug 04, 2015
  • Pinball, 1973
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    978-0-8041-9024-4
    $10.00 US
    Audiobook Download
    Random House Audio
    Aug 04, 2015
  • Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
    Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
    Haruki Murakami
    978-0-8041-7012-3
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    May 05, 2015
  • The Strange Library
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    978-0-385-35430-1
    $26.00 US
    Paperback
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    Dec 02, 2014
  • 1Q84
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    978-0-307-47646-3
    $20.00 US
    Paperback
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    Jan 22, 2013
  • What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
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    Haruki Murakami
    978-0-307-38983-1
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Aug 11, 2009
  • After Dark
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    978-0-307-27873-9
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Apr 29, 2008
  • Vintage Murakami
    Vintage Murakami
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    978-0-307-43001-4
    $4.99 US
    Ebook
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    Dec 18, 2007
  • Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
    Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
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    978-1-4000-9608-4
    $17.00 US
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    Vintage
    Oct 09, 2007
  • Kafka on the Shore
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    978-1-4000-7927-8
    $17.95 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jan 03, 2006
  • After the Quake
    After the Quake
    Stories
    Haruki Murakami
    978-0-375-71327-9
    $15.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    May 13, 2003
  • A Wild Sheep Chase
    A Wild Sheep Chase
    A Novel
    Haruki Murakami
    978-0-375-71894-6
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Apr 09, 2002
  • Sputnik Sweetheart
    Sputnik Sweetheart
    Haruki Murakami
    978-0-375-72605-7
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Apr 09, 2002
  • Underground
    Underground
    The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche
    Haruki Murakami
    978-0-375-72580-7
    $18.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Apr 10, 2001
  • Norwegian Wood
    Norwegian Wood
    Haruki Murakami
    978-0-375-70402-4
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Sep 12, 2000
  • South of the Border, West of the Sun
    South of the Border, West of the Sun
    A Novel
    Haruki Murakami
    978-0-679-76739-8
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Mar 14, 2000
  • The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
    The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
    A Novel
    Haruki Murakami
    978-0-679-77543-0
    $19.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Sep 01, 1998
  • Dance Dance Dance
    Dance Dance Dance
    Haruki Murakami
    978-0-679-75379-7
    $18.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jan 31, 1995
  • The Elephant Vanishes
    The Elephant Vanishes
    Stories
    Haruki Murakami
    978-0-679-75053-6
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Jun 28, 1994
  • Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
    Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
    Haruki Murakami
    978-0-679-74346-0
    $18.00 US
    Paperback
    Vintage
    Mar 02, 1993
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