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Ngan dieu cho em
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Firework
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The Time (Dirty Bit)
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Your Song
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Like A G6
Heroes
Thinking Of Me
Who's That Chick
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X Factor Finalists 2010
Olly Murs
David Guetta Ft
Rihanna
Nicole Scherzinger
Haruki Murakami
By Nora Lindstrom
I don’t like science fiction
or fantasy. I can gulp down
novels at a rate of one a day,
but these need to be anchored
in reality and fact. At least that
used to be the case until I
came across Haruki Murakami.
The prolific Japanese writer
blends fact with fiction like no
other, writing novels and short
stories so extraordinary yet
at the same time so real that
they make you doubt your own
understanding of reality.
Take Hard-boiled Wonderland
and the End of the
World for example. Written in
1985, the novel is a dream-like
fantasy that follows parallel
narratives told in alternate
chapters; one set in the surreal
technology-powered world of
the Hard-boiled Wonderland in
which human brains store and
encrypt data, while the other
follows the narrator in End of
the World, an equally fantastic
place where inhabitants are
not allowed to have shadows
nor, it transpires, minds.
The two storylines eventually
converge, concluding the
mindboggling exploration of
the mind, leaving the reader
to question his or her own
existence.
Murakami was 29 when he
wrote his first fiction novel,
Hear the Wind Sing. His major
breakthrough came eight years
later in 1987, with the publication
of Norwegian Wood, one
of his less surreal books. The
novel became a best-seller in
Japan, the tale of love and loss
attracting young readers in
particular. In 2006, he received
the Franz Kafka Prize for his
magical yet down-to-earth
novel Kafka on the Shore.
Despite his success, the
reclusive author is considered
a bit of a controversial figure
in Japan. The country’s literary
establishment is not keen on
his tales that often explore
themes of alienation and
loneliness in Japanese society.
References to western culture,
which permeate his works,
also rile the purists.
Yet at a global level, he is
loved. Widely expected to
receive the Nobel Prize for Literature,
he has been described
as one of the world’s greatest
living novelists. I certainly think
he is. And I suspect there are
other Murakami-fans in Cambodia
too. Why else would
several of the capital’s bookshops
carry copies of books
by the author, often for as little
as US $3 a piece
102 asialife HCMC