12 Problems Only Haruki Murakami Fans Will Understand

By Brian Wilson / March 24, 2015

7. Not Everything Will Be Translated

Translation is hard €“ it's extremely labour intensive and is often done by a single person in order to maintain a unified authorial voice.

For years Murakami's main English translators have been Alfred Birnbaum, Jay Rubin and Philip Gabriel, but the nature of the book industry mains it's simply impossible (and not economical) for everything Murakami writes in Japanese to be translated into English. You've only got to take a look at the bibliography on Wikipedia to see how much work remains untranslated. There are books of essays, travel writing and short stories that will probably never be translated. Sigh.