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At the Critical Stage: A Report on the State of Murakami Haruki Studies
Author(s) -
Strecher Matthew
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
literature compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.158
H-Index - 4
ISSN - 1741-4113
DOI - 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2011.00856.x
Subject(s) - popularity , nationality , nobel laureate , state (computer science) , emphasis (telecommunications) , psychoanalysis , third stage , literature , psychology , history , aesthetics , art , poetry , social psychology , geography , engineering , archaeology , algorithm , immigration , computer science , training (meteorology) , meteorology , electrical engineering
Abstract Since the start of his career over 30 years ago, Murakami Haruki (b. 1949) has been a controversial figure in the world of Japanese literature. Writing in an undecorated plainstyle that gives little in the way of cultural specificity, and on themes that could apply to persons from almost any land, Murakami’s work is deemed mukokuseki – without nationality – by critics. Many in and out of Japan expect that Murakami will be awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in the near future. If this happens, he will join Kawabata Yasunari and Ōe Kenzaburō as the third Nobel laureate in literature from Japan. For all this, the global nature of his writing and his popularity ensures that he will remain a controversial figure. This essay looks at some of the more prominent themes and discussions that have taken place about Murakami in the past thirty years, with special emphasis placed on recent critical work.