Murakami: I’m a literary outcast in Japan

Haruki Murakami: ‘I’m an outcast of the Japanese literary world. Critics, writers, many of them don’t like me’, says the cult novelist

Asked to name some of his favourite writers working today, Murakami enthuses about Kazuo Ishiguro (“I think he dedicates himself to the writing … When he’s not writing he goes around the world, but when he’s writing he goes nowhere”), Cormac McCarthy (“always riveting”), and the Norwegian novelist Dag Solstad, whom he is currently translating into Japanese from English (“He’s a kind of surrealistic writer, very strange novels. I think that’s serious literature”). As he has translated Raymond Chandler, I ask him about modern crime writers too. “I like Lee Child,” he announces decisively, and laughs. So do I, I say. “Oh you like him? That’s good! So far I have read 10 of them.” What do you like about them? He moves his hands in the air as though running his fingers over an invisible piano keyboard, and grins. “Everything’s the same!”