Transcending Realities: Haruki Murakami’s Surrealism

“That’s what the world is, after all: an endless battle of contrasting memories.” 

- 1Q84

Surrealism, the avant-garde literary movement emerged with the aim of liberating thought, language, and human experience from the oppressive boundaries of rationalism. The famous Japanese contemporary writer, Haruki Murakami uses the surrealist ideas and techniques widely in his works, thus making his works of art a seamless flow of thoughts – people’s emotions; or their uncanny, inexplicable convictions.

Murakami’s surreal style has won him fans worldwide. The readers of Haruki Murakami know what it’s like to plunge deep into something. The illusion that he creates through his stories, the familiar settings and situations with the intervention of supernatural elements leave the readers amazed. The aura that he creates through his writings is boundless and mystical, allowing the readers to tread in the world of literature freely, leaving the sensibilities of reason and logic behind. But while his surreal, spartan prose is unquestionably engaging and at times strangely suspenseful, his storytelling has divided critics.

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Murakami makes a clear blend of normal and abnormal, real and surreal, conventional and magical in his art works which create a vibrant experience for the readers. The Japanese writer offers us new horizons to view things from a different perspective, bringing the peculiar reality of the rambling world in front of us, thus, shaking the inner chords of the readers through his fiction works.

Life may be abidingly strange, Murakami’s books seem to say, but nightmares do end surely.

“Death is not the opposite of life, but a part of it.”

 — Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

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