Popular Japanese storyteller Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Woodk, Wind-up Bird Chronicle) was recently awarded the Franz Kafka Prize, given annually through the cooperation of the Franz Kafka Society and the city of Prague, Czech Republic. Kafka is said to be a favorite of Murakami since he first read the Czech author’s works as a teenager. Murakami named the leading character of his novel Kafka on the Shore after Franz Kafka to honor him.

According to the organizers, the award is given to authors whose works exhibit “humanistic character and contribution to cultural, national, language and religious tolerance, existential, timeless character, generally human validity and ability to hand over a testimony about our times.” Past winners of the award have also received the Nobel Prize for Literature and Murakami has also been said to be a likely candidate for the prestigious prize.

Recently released:

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
by Haruki Murakami

Description:
Following the best-selling triumph of Kafka on the Shore comes a collection that generously expresses Murakami’s mastery. From the surreal to the mundane, these stories exhibit his ability to transform the full range of human experience in ways that are instructive, surprising, and relentlessly entertaining.

Here are animated crows, a criminal monkey, and an iceman, as well as the dreams that shape us and the things we might wish for. Whether during a chance reunion in Italy, a romantic exile in Greece, a holiday in Hawaii, or in the grip of everyday life, Murakami’s characters confront grievous loss, or sexuality, or the glow of a firefly, or the impossible distances between those who ought to be the closest of all.
About the Author

About the author:
Haruki Murakami was born in Kyoto in 1949 and now lives near Tokyo. His work has been translated into thirty-eight languages, and the most recent of his many honors is the Yomiuri Literary Prize, whose previous recipients include Yukio Mishima, Kenzaburo Oe, and Kobo Abe.

Murakami likes unagi, Smirnoff Vodka, and Radiohead. Learn more about the author from his website.