TOKYO, July 3, (V7N) — Haruki Murakami’s first novel in three years reached bookstores in Japan on Friday, with the author saying his writing process is “completely different” from what artificial intelligence can produce.The new work, featuring a woman as the main character for the first time in his full-length fiction, went on sale at midnight in Tokyo. Local media reported that dozens of fans lined up to buy the book.

 

“AI takes into account everything that has happened so far and draws analogies,” Murakami told Kyodo News in an exclusive interview published Friday. “But the process of how I write novels is something completely different.”Although rapid advances in generative AI now make it possible for the technology to produce novels, Murakami said a novelist’s role is “to drag in something new that suddenly flashes into your mind.”

 

The author of Norwegian Wood and Kafka on the Shore, whose works on the absurdity and loneliness of modern life have been translated into about 50 languages, said characters often “suddenly show up” when he is deeply immersed in writing. “That’s not something that comes out from analogy,” he added. “AI probably can’t do that.”Titled The Tale of KAHO, the novel marks the first time Murakami has used a female protagonist in a full-length work, publisher Shinchosha noted on its website.

 

In a separate interview with the Asahi Shimbun, also published Friday, Murakami said: “I had the feeling that I was seeing the world through eyes that were different from my usual ones.” “Of course, I can only imagine how women see the world,” he said. “But when I wrote Kafka on the Shore, I was looking at the world through the eyes of a fifteen-year-old boy, and in that sense, a novelist can become anything.”

 

He told the Asahi that spending time at Wellesley College, a women’s college in the United States, influenced the book. “Right now, women’s perspectives are being valued very highly, and I think breathing in that kind of atmosphere also had an influence on ‘Kaho’ this time around,” he said.

Murakami added that he has generally avoided writing about parents and children, but “every time I write a novel, there’s always an urge to try something I haven’t done before.” “This time, that might have been the parent-child” relationship, he said.

END/WD/RH