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What I Talk About When I Talk About Running.

A few months ago, I had read that Haruki Murakami had a new book out in Japan. The book is about his experience running in marathons. He's quite the accomplished runner, having run in the Boston, New York and Tokyo marathons, amongst others.

I didn't think it would get translated into English since a lot of Murakami's non-fiction which have been published in Japan gets ignored by his translators. And rightly too. If you've read the unofficial fan translations of his essays, they're mostly insubstantial or ephemeral. Sometimes even laughable, in a bad sort of way, and I don't think it's the fault of the translations.

Murakami likes to surprise me even outside his fiction, I guess. Soon the new book will be his first non-fiction book to be published in English since Underground, which tells the accounts of the survivors of Aum Shinrikyo gas attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995.

The new book is called What I Talk About When I Talk About Running and is translated by Philip Gabriel, who also translated Kafka on the Shore as well as Sputnik Sweetheart. Amazon claims a release date of 29 July 2008.

I can't wait. And dig that Raymond Carver reference too!
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Comments

  1. Anonymous8/12/07 8:55 am

    :) Wah!! Thanks for the info! I will be on the lookout for his new non fiction! Thanks, Ted!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ted Mahsun8/12/07 11:53 am

    No problems, Ginger. Mark 29 July on your calendar!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Eric Forbes30/12/07 1:32 pm

    Murakami's interesting new title reminds me of Raymond Carver's What We Talk About When We Talk Love!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ted Mahsun30/12/07 3:04 pm

    Yes, I mentioned that in the post. I don't think it wasn't deliberate as Murakami is a big fan of Carver, having translated his works into Japanese and had even met him at one time before his untimely death.

    ReplyDelete

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