How did a loner destined for a niche domestic audience become one of
the most famous writers alive? A fascinating look at the business of
bringing a best-selling novelist to a global audience (The
Atlantic)―and a "rigorous" exploration of the role of translators and
editors in the creation of literary culture (The Paris Review).
Thirty years ago, when Haruki Murakami's works were first being
translated, they were part of a series of pocket-size English-learning
guides released only in Japan. Today his books can be read in fifty
languages and have won prizes and sold millions of copies globally. How
did a loner destined for a niche domestic audience become one of the
most famous writers alive? This book tells one key part of the story.
Its cast includes an expat trained in art history who never intended to
become a translator; a Chinese American ex-academic who never planned to
work as an editor; and other publishing professionals in New York,
London, and Tokyo who together introduced a pop-inflected, unexpected
Japanese voice to the wider literary world.
David Karashima synthesizes research, correspondence, and interviews
with dozens of individuals--including Murakami himself--to examine how
countless behind-the-scenes choices over the course of many years worked
to build an internationally celebrated author's persona and oeuvre. His
careful look inside the making of the "Murakami Industry uncovers larger
questions: What role do translators and editors play in framing their
writers' texts? What does it mean to translate and edit "for a market"?
How does Japanese culture get packaged and exported for the West?
