Haruki Murakami: The Jazz Novelist

How the Rhythms and Improvisations of Jazz Shape His Literary World

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Haruki Murakami’s love for jazz runs deep—so deep that it has shaped not only his personal life but also the very fabric of his writing. Before he became one of the most celebrated novelists of our time, he was just a young man in Tokyo with a dream: to own a jazz bar. In 1974, that dream became a reality when he and his wife, Yoko, opened Peter Cat, a cozy spot where they served drinks and filled the air with the sounds of Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Duke Ellington. The bar was Murakami’s first major creative endeavor, and though it may not have been a financial success, it was a space where he lived and breathed music, absorbing its rhythms and moods in a way that would later seep into his fiction.

Murakami has often said that he learned how to write from music, not from literature. He never formally studied creative writing, nor did he apprentice under any literary mentors. Instead, he developed his style by listening to jazz. “I’ve never learned how to write from anyone,” he once said. “If you ask me where I learned to write, my answer is music.” This influence is evident in the way he structures his stories—fluid, improvisational, sometimes melancholic, other times playful. His novels unfold like jazz compositions, with characters and themes weaving in and out, sometimes disappearing for long stretches only to return in an unexpected variation.