By MARI YAMAGUCHI (Associated Press)
TOKYO (AP) — Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami hosted a ghost story studying occasion in Tokyo amid rising consideration earlier than the announcement of this 12 months’s Nobel Prize in literature, an award he’s a perennial favourite to win.
Murakami mentioned at Thursday’s studying that he enjoys scary tales and wished to jot down extra of them. The occasion featured one from the 18-century assortment “Tales of Moonlight and Rain,” which intrigued Murakami since his childhood and is understood to have impressed his work.
The traditional assortment written by Akinari Ueda and referred to as “Ugetsu Monogatari” in Japanese explores a blurry borderline between the true and surreal, which Murakami mentioned in a information he contributed to a 2021 journal made him marvel which aspect he was on.
Borders and partitions are vital motifs in Murakami’s writing. Protagonists in his tales typically journey via partitions or between two worlds and encounter mysterious, unique characters. While Murakami has mentioned he grew up largely studying Western novels, some consultants have additionally famous the affect of Ueda’s tales in a few of Murakami’s work.
Murakami has been a candidate for the Nobel Prize in literature for greater than a decade, and the winner of the 2023 prize is scheduled to be introduced on Oct. 5. If he wins, he would might be first Japanese author since Kenzaburo Oe in 1994 to be named a Nobel laureate.
Japanese media even have talked about novelists Yoko Ogawa and Yoko Tawada as potential contenders lately, and worldwide media even have put Chinese fiction author Can Xue and American novelist Thomas Pynchon on the record of this 12 months’s potential winners.
The pending Nobel Prize didn’t come up at Thursday’s ghost story occasion. Kayoko Shiraishi, a veteran actress recognized for ghost story monologues, carried out Ugetsu’s “The Kibitsu Cauldron,” a narrative of an imprudent man who marries a priest’s good daughter regardless of a cauldron’s fortunetelling revealing a foul omen. The protagonist meets a horrendous finish after betraying his spouse, who turns into a vengeful spirit.
Murakami mentioned he loved Shiraishi’s “scary” efficiency of a number of roles and mentioned he would really like her to strive “The Mirror,” one of many quick horror tales he wrote in 1983.
Murakami wrote his first printed novel, 1979’s “Hear the Wind Sing,” after being impressed to jot down fiction whereas watching a baseball recreation at Meiji Jingu Stadium, which is now a part of a controversial redevelopment of Tokyo’s historic Jingu Gaien park space, to which opposition is rising.
Murakami, who voiced opposition to the mission in his radio present final month, repeated his concern on the story studying occasion, noting the plan entails eradicating about 1,000 timber. An avid runner, Murakami additionally famous that the world is a part of his operating course, and that the stadium is house to his favourite workforce, the Yakult Swallows.
“Jingu Gaien is a very important place for me,” Murakami mentioned. “I will continue to raise my voice of opposition to this redevelopment, and any of you who agree with me, please support.” The viewers applauded his assertion.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”