To mark the publication of a new volume on Murakami Haruki, arguably Japan's most high-profile contemporary writer, the Japan Society welcomes the editors Gitte Marianne Hansen and Michael Tsang, together with contributors Annette Thorsen Vilslev and Patricia Welch, to discuss Murakami, his work and its reception.

With contributions from prominent Murakami scholars, Murakami Haruki and Our Years of Pilgrimage approaches the works of Murakami Haruki through interdisciplinary perspectives, discussing their significance and value through the lenses of history; geography; politics; gender and sexuality; translation; and literary influence and circulation. Together the chapters provide a multifaceted assessment on Murakami’s literary oeuvre in the last four decades, vouching for its continuous importance in understanding the world and Japan in contemporary times. The book also features exclusive material that includes the cultural critic Katō Norihiro’s final work on Murakami – his chapter here is one of the few works ever translated into English – to interviews with Murakami and discussions from his translators and editors, shedding light not only on Murakami’s works as literature but as products of cross-cultural exchanges.

About the speakers:

Gitte Marianne Hansen is Senior Lecturer in Japanese studies at Newcastle University, UK. She is an AHRC Leadership Fellow and PI for the Gendering Murakami Haruki project on Murakami Haruki – an interest she first developed while working as a teaching and research assistant to Katō Norihiro at Waseda University (2004–2009). More generally, her work focuses on Japanese culture since the 1980s, especially issues related to gender and character construction. She is the author of Femininity, Self-harm and Eating Disorders in Japan: Navigating Contradiction in Narrative and Visual Culture (2016).

Michael Tsang is Lecturer of Japanese Studies at Birkbeck, University of London. Previously he was Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at Newcastle University where he also worked on the AHRC-funded Gendering Murakami Haruki project. He researches in postcolonial and world literatures with an East Asian focus. He is the co-editor of Murakami Haruki and Our Years of Pilgrimage (Routledge 2022) and is published in Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, Japan Forum, Sanglap, and other volumes. He is the founding editor of the world’s first bilingual academic journal on Hong Kong, Hong Kong Studies.

Annette Thorsen Vilslev, PhD in Comparative Literature, University of Copenhagen, Denmark, has published book chapters, translations, and academic essays on Japanese literature and world literature, including Questioning Western universality: Sōseki’s Theory of Literature and his novel Kusamakura (Japan Forum, 2017). She was a Monbukagakusho student and a JSPS Postdoctoral Fellow at Waseda University and has taught at universities in Denmark.

Patricia Welch is Professor of Japanese and Comparative Literature at Hofstra University. Research interests include Murakami Haruki, rakugo, and Japanese mysteries. Publications include Responsible dreaming: Dreamscapes and trauma response in Murakami Haruki’s Kafka on the Shore, Excess, alienation and ambivalence: Edogawa Rampo’s tales of mystery and imagination, and A consideration of Kokoro: Hints and echoes of Japanese inner life. With Mari Fujimoto, she authored NipponGO! An Introduction to Elementary Modern Japanese Language.

If you have any questions, please call the Japan Society office on 020 3075 1996 or email events@japansociety.org.uk.