My two favorite writers made a dreamy book-baby together in Japan.
Haruki Murakami and Shigesato Itoi. They’re both Japanese, both prolific and popular authors, although only Murakami has recieved English translations for his work. Murakami — for those of you lovely, poor people that haven’t chanced to experience him yet — is a novelist with themes of magical realism and unrequited love, with a noticable inspiration from Raymond Carver. He’s… quite fantastic to say the least. Possibly my favorite author.
The other, Itoi, is really only known in America by a dedicated fan base for the video game trilogy known as Mother. Of course, as fans know, the only game we ever saw released here is Earthbound (Mother 2), leaving a large chunk of Itoi goodness thoroughly untranslated in official form (Mother 1 and 3 have unofficial translations, but neither emulate particularly well, and his works of fiction haven’t seen any translation I know of).
And it seems so strange to me, that Murakami is marketed and hyped and translated while Itoi — with very similar storytelling, themes of surreal, philosophical, and spiritual experiences, etc. — is ignored (especially by NoA). So how can we get Itoi some recognition?
The best way would be to release a translation for a book the two co-authored, entitled “Let’s Meet in a Dream.” Originally published in 1981, later revised (with some story-swapping) in 1986, it’s a large collection of (clearly) dreamy short stories. I think it would be so interesting to see these authors’ stories side-by-side. According to this little page, the authors seem to have each written a story about the other, as well. There’s an Itoi story called “Haruki Murakami,” and vice versa.
Beautiful writers. (Left: Itoi, Right: Murakami)
I can see a few of the Murakami stories from this book petering out in English the next few years, but Itoi is far too ignored by everyone but fans to be published without the Murakami pairing. It’s a shame, because Itoi seems to mirror Murakami’s subject matter, but perhaps with a less subtle, more humorous take on being human. Even the title of Itoi’s latest story collection, “A Place Where Small Worlds Are Sung,” seems like it would fit perfectly next to Murakami’s work on a bookshelf.
So… hey there, publishers. Can we make it happen?