The Career of International Best-Selling Author Haruki Murakami

For more than two decades, Geoffrey “Geoff” Scovil has worked as a solo practicing attorney in Albuquerque, New Mexico. When he’s not busy protecting the rights of his clients, the Albuquerque attorney enjoys reading. One of Geoffrey Scovil’s favorite authors is Haruki Murakami.

Best-selling writer Haruki Murakami was born in Kyoto, Japan, in 1949. In 1979, Murakami published his first novel, Hear the Wind Sing. For this work, he was awarded the Gunozou Literature Prize for new writers, and within one year, the novel had been turned into a film. The author followed his first success with Pinball, 1973 in 1980, and A Wild Sheep Chase in 1982. 

Over the next several years, Murakami’s fame grew. A Wild Sheep Chase was his first international success, and he soon released Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World), a fantasy novel that earned him the Tanizaki Prize, and Norwegian Wood, a coming-of-age novel that cemented his role as an international literary celebrity.

In the late 1980s, Murakami moved to Europe after becoming disaffected by Japan’s social climate. Then, in 1991, he moved to the United States where he taught at Tufts University and Princeton University while continuing his writing. He published The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle in the mid- ‘90s, and, after moving back to Japan in 1995, released both Underground and After the Quake. Since then, Murakami has continued writing novels and memoirs, including IQ84, Men Without Women, and What I Talk About When I Talk About Running.

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