On the 28th of August, Gyaan Adab saw a large turn out of eager readers, young and old, who wished to witness the presentation by Suyash Kabra on two of Haruki Murakami’s works.
Suyash Kabra’s presentation kicked off with a brief introduction of Murakami himself.
Haruki Murakami is a Japanese author and writer who is world-famous for his titles, “Kafka on the Shore”, “Norwegian Wood” and “1Q84” to name a few. His work has been translated into more than 50 languages, and he’s had multiple bestsellers in his 40-year writing career. He began writing at the age of 29, after a moment of enlightenment at a baseball game.
He is the recipient of a number of awards, including a Noma Literary Prize, the 2016 Hans Christian Andersen Literary Award and the 2006 World Fantasy Award.
He then went into the specifications of his writing, including the context in which a lot of his work is written. Murakami tends to take many non-fictional scenarios from history and apply them to his work, including but not restricted to the Tokyo gassing, the Kobe earthquake and the war crimes that occurred in Manchukuo.
The key characteristic of Murakami’s work is the first person narrative he employs through which he asserts his profound perspective, and through which the characters seem to seep into reality and into his other works, creating an almost sub-reality he operates within. His writing often takes off from the themes of freedom, and of the modern Japan in the turn of the century.
Kabra goes on to mention that Murakami heavily uses international pop and classical music as the in-book scores that accompany his writing, and allows for them to relate to situations and set the moods in his settings.
This was followed by the essence of the talk; the two books of Murakami that were to be discussed were “A Wild Sheep’s Chase” and “Dance Dance Dance”.
Dance Dance Dance is the sequel to “A Wild Sheep’s Chase” and follows the plot of an unnamed narrator and his return to a hotel he visited with a loved one in the first book.
The utmost effort was taken not to spoil the book for readers who maybe hadn’t had a chance to read those books, while still touching about some central themes and concepts that were part of the books.
The session was wrapped up after a dialogue between. Mr. Kabra and the audience as they discussed the novels.
Date- 28th August, Wednesday
Time- 6PM
Entry- FREE
