Novelist as a Vocation by Haruki Murakami

1 November 2022

Despite what you might see on bookstagram, the stages of many a literary festival, and many other places, writers are not, and cannot be, friends with each other.

They “are are basically an egoistic breed, proud and highly competitive“, contends Japanese author Haruki Murakami. We’re not here to make friends, we’re here to write books. And if anyone would know, Murakami would. With fourteen novels to his name, no one can say he wouldn’t know.

This is but one nugget of wisdom Murakami shares in his latest title, Novelist as a Vocation, published by Penguin Books, where he writes about being a novelist:

Haruki Murakami’s myriad fans will be delighted by this unique look into the mind of a master storyteller. In this engaging book, the internationally best-selling author and famously reclusive writer shares with readers what he thinks about being a novelist; his thoughts on the role of the novel in our society; his own origins as a writer; and his musings on the sparks of creativity that inspire other writers, artists, and musicians. Readers who have long wondered where the mysterious novelist gets his ideas and what inspires his strangely surreal worlds will be fascinated by this highly personal look at the craft of writing.