Introduction: the celebrity of Haruki Murakami

Abstract

If stardomas argued by Richard Dyer (1979, p. 43) in his seminal work Starsis marked as an 'ambiguity/contradiction' concerning 'stars-as-ordinary' and 'stars-as-special', then the Japanese author Haruki Murakami certainly qualifies as a literary star. Indeed, Murakami is frequently described as a modest, unassuming, self-effacing character. Jay Rubin (2012, p. 40), the author's long-time translator and fan of the first hour, observes for instance that 'the note of "ordinariness"' often comes through in 'Murakami's comments on himself and what others have said about him'. At the same time, it is clear that Murakami's authorship is far from ordinary: it is synonymous with phenomenal commercial success and global popularity. Additionally, Murakami can be said to be extraordinary in the sense that the author's signature is a brand name that readers associate with the mysterious and the surreal. Murakami's name immediately evokes a literary universe filled with fantastical events, talking animals, and parallel worlds. Fans, literary critics, and scholars all over the world appear fascinated by what has been dubbed 'the Murakami Phenomenon' or, alternatively, 'the Haruki Effect'. Murakami's literary stardom is a recent manifestation of a cultural pattern with deep historical roots. The history of celebrity authorship has been traced back to early modern times (Narain 2009) and scholars have extensively mapped its development through romanticism (

Self-Back-Translation by Haruki Murakami: A Self-Translator’s Perspective

“…In the revision of the ST of Samurai and Cotton (Takahashi, 2020b), I realized that many of those alterations made in the TT were "translatable" back into Japanese and thus adopted them, which, in my opinion, improved the revised edition. In the TT section that corresponds to the above, the target language (TL) equivalent of sōieba is missing from the second paragraph: [11] English Translation of [10] (Takahashi, 2011, p. 27) Kiyoshi wished, however, to go on to enter the next stage of education. He was smart and rather a scholarly type, and naturally, he wished to continue studying.…”

“…[12] Back-translation of [11] or revision of [10] What I did here was to take advantage of and utilize the English rhetorical technique learned through self-translating the original text from Japanese into English.…”