Haruki Murakami: ‘You have to go through the darkness before you get to the light’

By Oliver Burkeman

 

Haruki Murakami rises at 4am to write for five or six hours before a six-mile run and a swim. Photograph: Murdo Macleod for the Guardian

 

The day before we meet in Manhattan, a woman stopped Haruki Murakami in Central Park, where he had come for his late-morning run.

 

“Excuse me,” she said, “but aren’t you a very famous Japanese novelist?” A faintly odd way of putting the question, but Murakami responded in his usual equable manner.

 

“I said ‘No, really I’m just a writer. But still, it’s nice to meet you!’ And then we shook hands. When people stop me like that, I feel very strange, because I’m just an ordinary guy. I don’t really understand why people want to meet me.”

 

It would be a mistake to interpret this as false modesty, but equally wrong to see it as genuine discomfort with fame: so far as it’s possible to tell, the 69-year-old Murakami neither relishes nor dislikes his global celebrity.

 

Full Story: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/oct/11/haruki-murakami-interview-killing-commendatore

I wouldn't have a clue who he was if I was him in Central Park.  He's totally anonymous around me.  One less non-fan out there to accost him.

I raised to believe accosting celebrities in this way is gauche, so never do so.

Imagine sitting somewhere minding ones’ own business and some nobody approaches to request an autograph, likely to sell for a profit.