I watched a video of Murakami Haruki’s Barcelona speech about the Tsunami and Fukushima nuclear accident on the internet about two days after its release. I was struck by this effort by a writer who is best known for his studied distance to engage in the contemporary world in an extremely concrete manner. I felt the speech was so significant that it deserved to be translated into English. I did the translation within a few days and passed it on to John Treat, a professor of Japanese literature at Yale University whom I had the chance to host here in Korea recently. After I discussed the translation a bit with John, I passed it on to my friend Mark Seldon, editor of Japan Focus, suggesting we should publish it in Japan Focus for a wider audience.
Mark recommended that I take the translation down from my website and prepare an authoritative version. I contacted Murakami Haruki’s office, through the introduction of Jay Rubin at Harvard—who is one of Murakami’s primary translators—and discussed the translations and Murakami’s publisher’s policy. This translation is by no means an “authorized edition” but in fact I talked with the office at length and sent the material by email to Murakami Haruki. There are several other versions out there, but I think this one is most accurate.
I spent quite a bit of time with Murakami Haruki back in the summer of 1994 when he was on sabbatical at Harvard for one year. We spent a bit of time together as I describe in my essay “On Murakami Haruki.”
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Japan Focus July 18, 2011 Speaking as an Unrealistic Dreamer Speech by Murakami Haruki on the occasion of receiving the International Catalunya Prize Translated by Emanuel Pastreich
I last visited Barcelona two years ago in the spring. An amazing number of readers gathered when I held a book signing. Long lines formed and I still could not finish signing all the books even after one and a half hours. The reason it took so long is that so many of the female readers wanted to kiss me. That was time consuming. I have held book signings in many cities around the world, but Barcelona was the only place in the world where the female readers asked for kisses. That one example is sufficient evidence of just what a fantastic city Barcelona is. And what good fortune it is that I have another chance to return to this city whose beautiful streets are resplendent with refined culture and a long history.
But, unfortunately, I am not going to talk about kisses today. I must talk about something a bit more serious.
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