Why Japanese author Haruki Murakami’s new book – a rewritten, expanded version of one of his stories from 1980 – took him 35 years to start
- Murakami decided in 2020 to finally start on a new version of The City, and Its Uncertain Walls, whose story was ‘like a tiny fishbone stuck in the throat’
- He always believed the 1980 story had more potential but was too complex for his storytelling ability in the early stages of his career
Haruki Murakami wrote a story of a walled city in 1980 when he was fresh off his debut book. More than four decades later, as a seasoned and acclaimed novelist, he has expanded it and given it new life in The City and Its Uncertain Walls, which was released on April 13.
It was three years ago when he felt the time had come to revisit the original story of the same name (save for an extra comma), which he thought was imperfect but had important elements, such as the wall and the shadow, and tackle them again based on what he was feeling at the time.
“Because of the coronavirus … I hardly went out and stayed home most of the time, and I tended to look at my inner self. Then I thought, perhaps it’s time to write that story,” Murakami says. And he did, “as if recovering it from the back of a drawer”.
He started writing it in January 2020 and finished in December 2022, years that overlapped with multiple earth-shattering events such as Russia’s war on Ukraine, shaken globalism and the Pandora’s box of social media, Murakami notes.
“When I write a novel, I just know it’s time,” he says.