Bio• Born Jan, 1949• Contemporary Japanese writer• Only child, parents both taught Japanese literature• Grew up influenced by Western culture, reading works by European and American writers (Franz Kafka, Charles Dickens, Jack Kerouac, amongst others...)
Themes and ideas
• Surreal• Melancholy tone• 'Kafkaesque' - themes of alienation, loneliness
• Memory (are memories true? reliable?) - alternate realities? rewritten histories..• (relating to above) Time• Contrast of surreal with mundane everyday?
Life events, influences
• His fiction seen by Japanese critics as 'un-Japanese' - influenced by Western writers
• Said that his early works focus on individual darkness/melancholy, while later works focus on that of a collective society, or throughout history
Works of note
• Norwegian Wood (1987)• Kafka on the Shore (2002) • 1Q84 (2009-2010)
Life events, influences
• His fiction seen by Japanese critics as 'un-Japanese' - influenced by Western writers
• Said that his early works focus on individual darkness/melancholy, while later works focus on that of a collective society, or throughout history
Works of note
• Norwegian Wood (1987)• Kafka on the Shore (2002) • 1Q84 (2009-2010)
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