Haruki Murakami, the 76-year-old Tokyo resident and perennial Nobel Prize candidate, received two honors in New York last week for his career as a storyteller, translator, critic, and essayist. The Center for Fiction presented him with its Lifetime of Excellence in Fiction Award on Tuesday night. Two days later, the Japan Society co-hosted a jazzy tribute called “Murakami Mixtape” at The Town Hall and awarded him its annual prize for fostering U.S.-Japan ties.
Haruki Murakami, known for novels like “Kafka on the Shore” and “The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle” that explore themes of identity, isolation, and memory, also shares passions for beer, baseball, running, and jazz. Last week in Manhattan, he was celebrated for his multifaceted career. On Tuesday night, at the Center for Fiction gala held at Cipriani 25 Broadway, longtime admirer Patti Smith introduced him by performing the ballad “Wing,” with its refrain: “And if there’s one thing/I could do for you/You’d be a wing/In heaven blue.” She then recalled discovering his debut novel “Hear the Wind Sing,” reading its opening line: “There’s no such thing as perfect writing, just like there’s no such thing as perfect despair.” “I was hooked, immediately,” Smith said.
Two days later, the sold-out “Murakami Mixtape” at The Town Hall offered a bilingual blend of music, readings, and reflections, framed by Murakami's remarks and led by jazz pianist Jason Moran, translator Motoyuki Shibata, and scholar Roland Nozomu Kelts. The event entertained casual fans—with a makeshift bar on stage—and educated specialists by featuring lesser-known works. Kelts (in English) and Shibata (in Japanese) read passages from surreal fiction like “Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World,” the memoir “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running,” the rare short story “The 1963/1982 Girl from Ipanema,” and an early essay questioning New York’s existence: “Does New York City really exist? I don’t believe, one hundred percent, the existence of the city. Ninety-nine percent, I would say.”
Kelts noted Murakami’s favorite cities, like Boston and Stockholm, for their used jazz record stores. Murakami’s jazz love began in 1963 as a teen, inspired by Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers’ Japan tour. The tribute rekindled this when Moran invited 88-year-old bassist Reggie Workman, the band’s last survivor, for a jam on “Ugetsu” from Blakey’s live album, ending with a poignant solo.
Murakami closed by reading in Japanese from “Kafka on the Shore” and joking he might have been a musician but disliked daily rehearsals. He opened with 1991 New York memories, read in English by Japan Society’s Joshua Walker: amid “Japan bashing,” events let people hammer Japanese cars for a dollar. On December 7, 1991—the 50th Pearl Harbor anniversary—he was advised to stay home. He felt more welcome after Japan’s economic slump reduced perceived threats but lamented his country’s cultural invisibility: “You often hear that Japan has no real face, no identity. I almost never came across contemporary Japanese fiction in American bookstores. As a Japanese writer, I couldn’t help but feel a real sense of crisis.”
Today, he sees progress: “Young Japanese writers venturing abroad, earning recognition... in music, film, anime and more. Economically, people talk about Japan’s three lost decades, but culturally, I think it’s fair to say that Japan’s face has finally emerged.”
