

The rise to the top, however, was not straightforward. Nevertheless, Murakami is viewed by international literary pundits as one of the greatest living novelists. His earlier works were dismissed as entertainment pieces while his overall nonconformist attitude earned the ire of “serious novelists”, among them Nobel Laureate in Literature Ōe Kenzaburō. While his brand of magical realism was seminal in breathing new life into Japanese literature, his fiction has often been met with disapproval by Japanese literary circles who viewed his works were not representatives of Japanese schools of literature. According to betting sites, Murakami is again within striking distance of being recognized by the Swedish Academy this year.

With the popularity and diversity of his works and the critical acclaim they have earned him, it comes as no surprise that Haruki Murakami is always a part of conversations vis-a-vis the Nobel Prize in Literature. His works have also been recognized by several prestigious literary award-giving bodies, earning Murakami accolades such as the Gunzo Prize for New Writers, the World Fantasy Award, the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, the Franz Kafka Prize, and the Jerusalem Prize. With a prolific career that spanned nearly five decades, he produced some of the most memorable works of fiction, such as Kafka on the Shore, A Wild Sheep Chase, and The Wind-up Bird Chronicle. His brand of magical realism has re-established the stature of Japanese literature as one of the foremost segments of the vast world of literature. He is a name that readers will inevitably encounter when they foray into Japanese literature. In the ambit of contemporary Japanese literature, one name that looms above everyone is Haruki Murakami (村上 春樹, Murakami Haruki).
