TOKYO (AP) — Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami hosted a ghost story studying occasion in Tokyo amid rising consideration earlier than the announcement of this 12 months’s Nobel Prize in literature, an award he’s a perennial favourite to win.
Murakami stated at Thursday’s studying that he enjoys scary tales and needed to write down extra of them. The occasion featured one from the 18-century assortment “Tales of Moonlight and Rain,” which intrigued Murakami since his childhood and is understood to have impressed his work.
The traditional assortment written by Akinari Ueda and known as “Ugetsu Monogatari” in Japanese explores a blurry borderline between the actual and surreal, which Murakami stated in a information he contributed to a 2021 journal made him marvel which aspect he was on.
Borders and partitions are vital motifs in Murakami’s writing. Protagonists in his tales usually journey by means of partitions or between two worlds and encounter mysterious, unique characters. Whereas Murakami has stated he grew up principally studying Western novels, some consultants have additionally famous the affect of Ueda’s tales in a few of Murakami’s work.
Murakami has been a candidate for the Nobel Prize in literature for greater than a decade, and the winner of the 2023 prize is scheduled to be introduced on Oct. 5. If he wins, he would will likely be first Japanese author since Kenzaburo Oe in 1994 to be named a Nobel laureate.
Japanese media even have talked about novelists Yoko Ogawa and Yoko Tawada as attainable contenders lately, and worldwide media even have put Chinese language fiction author Can Xue and American novelist Thomas Pynchon on the listing of this 12 months’s potential winners.
The pending Nobel Prize didn’t come up at Thursday’s ghost story occasion. Kayoko Shiraishi, a veteran actress identified for ghost story monologues, carried out Ugetsu’s “The Kibitsu Cauldron,” a narrative of an imprudent man who marries a priest’s good daughter regardless of a cauldron’s fortunetelling revealing a foul omen. The protagonist meets a horrendous finish after betraying his spouse, who turns into a vengeful spirit.
Murakami stated he loved Shiraishi’s “scary” efficiency of a number of roles and stated he would really like her to strive “The Mirror,” one of many quick horror tales he wrote in 1983.
Murakami wrote his first revealed novel, 1979’s “Hear the Wind Sing,” after being impressed to write down fiction whereas watching a baseball recreation at Meiji Jingu Stadium, which is now a part of a controversial redevelopment of Tokyo’s historic Jingu Gaien park space, to which opposition is rising.
Murakami, who voiced opposition to the challenge in his radio present final month, repeated his concern on the story studying occasion, noting the plan includes eradicating about 1,000 timber. An avid runner, Murakami additionally famous that the world is a part of his working course, and that the stadium is dwelling to his favourite crew, the Yakult Swallows.
“Jingu Gaien is a vital place for me,” Murakami stated. “I’ll proceed to boost my voice of opposition to this redevelopment, and any of you who agree with me, please assist.” The viewers applauded his assertion.