Murakami's 1Q84 flies off the shelves

The newest novel from Japanese author Haruki Murakami is expected to reach sales of one million by the end of the month, already surpassing the sales of his popular Kafka on the Shore.

The novel, which is said to encompass many of Murakami's essential themes and ideas, is an update of George Orwell's 1984, exploring thought control and cults in a futuristic Tokyo.

The success of the novel has also encouraged Japanese sales of Orwell's novel and Sinfonietta by Czech composer Leos Janacek, which is referenced in the book. Six thousand copies of the CD have been sold in the past week.

According to Reuters:

Murakami has been seen as a candidate for the Nobel Prize for Literature for years — a topic widely covered by the Japanese media, as was his emotional acceptance speech last year for Israel’s Jerusalem Prize following the fighting in Gaza. These reports may have attracted a wider readership, Shinchosha’s Mori said.

Some say that the writers who debuted in the late 1970s to early 1980s, including Murakami, ushered in a new era in Japanese literature. Their work is urbane and written in a way not seen before in Japan, but perhaps more significantly, their sense of identity and consciousness is no longer bound by the family system that was so strong in Japan, or by the experience of losing World War II.

Haruki Murakami and the Israeli-Palestinian Divide

Citing Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami's English-language speech on Feb. 20 in Israel as recipient of the 2009 Jerusalem Prize, the Japan Times explores Israel's erection of a defense wall, its role in world affairs, and the human compulsion to divide and separate ourselves.

From Murakami's speech:

Between a high, solid wall and an egg that breaks against it, I will always stand on the side of the egg. . . . Bombers and tanks and rockets and white phosphorus shells are that high, solid wall. The eggs are the unarmed civilians who are crushed and burned and shot by them. . . . Think of it this way. Each of us is, more or less, an egg. Each of us is a unique, irreplaceable soul enclosed in a fragile shell.