I myself, as I’m writing, don’t know who did it. The readers and I are on the same ground. When I start to write a story, I don’t know the conclusion at all and I don’t know what’s going to happen next. If there is a murder case as the first thing, I don’t know who the killer is. I write the book because I would like to find out. If I know who the killer is, there’s no purpose to writing the story.
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Haruki Murakami
Novelist, short-story writer and translator
Japan · b. 1949
Arts and letters
About
Japanese novelist whose books include Norwegian Wood, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Kafka on the Shore. He ran a Tokyo jazz club called Peter Cat before publishing his first novel, and has translated Raymond Carver, Tim O'Brien and F. Scott Fitzgerald into Japanese.
4 answers
I want my readers to laugh sometimes. Many readers in Japan read my books on the train while commuting. The average salaryman spends two hours a day commuting and he spends those hours reading. That’s why my big books are printed in two volumes: They would be too heavy in one. Some people write me letters, complaining that they laugh when they read my books on the train! It’s very embarrassing for them. Those are the letters I like most. I know they are laughing, reading my books; that’s good. I like to make people laugh every ten pages.
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