Literary pilgrimage to Haruki Murakami

Warning: Haruki Murakami’s library in Tokyo is misnamed. It’s not a library. It’s a literary pilgrimage.

They say “Haruki Murakami’s library”, but make no mistake: this is not where he is writing his next novel. You will not come across the best-known author from the Land of the Rising Sun.

Inaugurated in 2021 on the campus of his alma mater, Waseda University, this library is rather a tribute to Murakami’s work. The author donated several of his manuscripts and his collection of jazz records to the library.

If you are – like me – a loyal reader of Murakami, it is imperative to make this literary pilgrimage if you set foot in Japan. After all, he introduced us to his country through his novels.

Have you never read a line from Murakami? Don’t know anything about his unique and mysterious universe, tinged with magical realism? Even less his philosophy that our choices are less important than we think, because we will end up achieving our destiny anyway, going one way or another?

It’s not serious.

This Tokyo library is worth a visit. On the first floor you will discover a charming little café-restaurant, with excellent inexpensive dishes, coffee, ice cream and typically Japanese friendly service. This café, mostly filled with students, is the ideal place to stroll, stop the clock, write, read, in short, rest. The building designed by architect Kengo Kuma (the architect of the National Stadium for the 2020 Olympic Games) is sublime.

If you are a loyal reader of Murakami, you will have the added bonus of entering his universe.

Owner of a jazz bar in his twenties, Haruki Murakami had an epiphany during a baseball game at the stadium of his favorite team (the Tokyo Yakult Swallows): he wants to write a novel. Not to be published or achieve literary fame. To write, quite simply.

After his bar closes, he writes until the early hours. When he finishes his “work”, he sends his only manuscript to a literature competition. He wins the competition and his novel is published. He wrote around fifteen of them and is today the most renowned contemporary Japanese author. Irony: he has long been criticized in his country; it was said that his style was not Japanese enough.

In a nod to his first profession, the piano from his former jazz bar is on the first floor of his library, in the middle of the café. We also reproduced his office.

But it is on the second floor of the library (which can accommodate around a hundred readers) that you truly enter its world. In a large reading room, we find all his books, translated into all languages. You can read them there. There is something special about reading Murakami while comfortably seated on the sofas of your library while listening to his jazz records, as I did for two afternoons last summer.

Of all his novels, 1Q84 is the most popular. The story takes place in two parallel universes, those of Aomamé, a hired assassin, and Tengo, a writer, who believe they are destined to fall in love with each other. The three volumes are over 1500 pages, so not ideal for introducing you to Murakami…

For beginners, I suggest The colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and his years of pilgrimage, shorter (350 pages) and more accessible. It’s the story of five inseparable high school friends, including Tskukuru Tazaki. In his first year of university, his friends told him that they never wanted to see him again. Without giving him a reason. Sixteen years later, when he is about to get married, Tsukuru Tazaki wants to know what happened. The story will move you, and will undoubtedly immerse you a little in your own imperfect past.

Another winning strategy for newbies: start with one of his short story collections, like The elephant disappears Or Men without women.

Ah yes, whether you run or not, you must read his biography essay Self-portrait of the author as a long-distance runnerwhere the man who runs marathons and triathlons explains his personal philosophy and his relationship with sport.

Obviously, we won’t read all these books on the shelves of our library… Tokyo has so much to offer, it would be strange to lock ourselves away there for days to (re)devour its work. But in this exotic city, Haruki Murakami’s readers will be happy to find, if only for a few hours, a world that is strangely familiar to them.

The Haruki Murakami Library, officially Waseda International House of Literature (The Haruki Murakami Library), is closed on Wednesdays.

Further in the district, the Yayoi Kusama Museum

While in the Waseda district, you must visit the museum of the other Japanese artist best known abroad: the visual artist Yayoi Kusama, 94 years old, acclaimed throughout the world for her infinite mirrors, his pumpkins and his polka dot works. From Haruki Murakami Library, the Yayoi Kusama Museum is about a 20-minute walk away (use Google Maps on your cell phone). Warning: this is not one of those big Yayoi Kusama exhibitions that go around the world. The museum is more modest, and your visit will take you 30 minutes, at most. It’s still worth the trip, especially for the paltry entry price ($10 CAN per adult, $5.50 CAN per child). From November 9, 2023 to March 24, 2024, the exhibition will take place there Visionary Colors, which focuses on the artist’s unique use of color, through a series of works, from yesterday to today. Buy your tickets a few weeks in advance online.