Original language:
Japanese Translated from: Japanese
Authors: Murakami, Haruki
Translated by: Jurgita Polonskaitė
Full translated source bibliographical description:
Haruki Murakami, Kami no kodomotachi wa mina odoru, Tōkyō: Shinchōsha, 2000
ISBN: 978-9955-23-684-9
Published in: Vilnius
Published on: 2013
Publisher: Baltos lankos
In 1995 Japan suffered two huge disasters. On January 17 the Great Hanshin earthquake, also known as the Kobe, hit Japan. The earthquake was put in the Guinness Book of World Records, as the “costliest natural disaster to befall any one country”. During it 6434 people died. On March 20, toxic nerve gas was released in the Tokyo subway system, killing 13 and injuring thousands of people. These catastrophes shocked not only the public life of the country but also left a deep scar in the subconsciousness of Land of the Rising Sun‘s residents. It touched even those who were far away from where the events took place.
Six stories, six life descriptions, six different main characters who indirectly experience Japan disasters. Television, radio, friends and people around – everything allude about the Kobe disaster, but the characters are trying to remain indifferent to it. But divorce or separation from a loved one, feeling of emptiness, existential meaning sense loss, life mistakes, painful truth understanding shocked all characters. Enormous earthquake hit their inside, their soul. It is experienced through dreams, thoughts, hallucinations.
“After the quake” – it is the first collection of six short stories by famous Japanese writer, translator, postmodernist Haruki Murakami, which are linked by single theme. In the book author describes gloomy, pessimistic, but at the same time calm and cozy different, modern people’s routines. But this is only a first impression. In fact, this book has a lot of secrets, which attract readers with deep overtones, make think again about life and it‘s unexpected challenges.