Haruki Murakami Goes to Meet Hayao Kawai

160 pages, hardcover, ISBN 978-3-85630-771-4

Two of Japan’s foremost contemporary cultural spokespersons met for an informal conversation with remarkable results. While their extended talk took place at a particular location at a particular moment in history, much of the content is timeless and universal. After popular acclaim in Japan, the transcript now makes its first appearance in English.

Topics from the Contents:

The Meaning of Commitment

Words or Images?

Making Stories

Answering Logically versus Answering Compassionately

Self-Healing and Novels

Marriage and ‘Well-digging’

Curing and Living

Stories and the Body

The Relationship between a Work and its Author

Individuality and Universality

Violence and Expression

Where are We Headed?

Hayao Kawai was Minister of Culture for ­Japan and decorated as a ‘Person of Cultural ­Merit’. He originally studied mathematics, then trained to become a Jungian psychoanalyst and sandplay therapist in Zürich. Back in his native country, he went on to introduce Jung’s psychology and sandplay therapy. Kawai became a well-known writer and television personality in Japan and also abroad; many of his works have been translated into other languages. 

Haruki Murakami began to write at the age of 30 and blossomed into one of the premier writers of his generation. He has been awarded numerous honors in Japan as well as internationally, including the Franz Kafka Prize, the Jerusalem Prize and many others. He is known for his journalistic pieces, short stories and genre-defying novels, including The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, Norwegian Wood, A Wild Sheep Chase, Wind/Pinball and 1Q84.

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Professor Hayao Kawai (1928 – 2007) of the International Research Center for Japanese Studies in Kyoto became interested in Western culture at an early age and has spent much of his life as a kind of ’ambassador’ between East and West. He first traveled to the United States in 1959 to study clinical psychology, then spent several years in Zurich training to become a Jungian analyst. In the ensuing years, he became a familiar honored guest at the Eranos Conferences in Ascona. Professor Kawai is the author and editor of more than fifty books on religious and psychological themes, and he has lectured throughout the world. His previous publications in English include »The Japanese Psyche« and »The Buddhist Priest Myôe: A Life of Dreams«.

An interview with Professor Hayao Kawai appeared in the IAAP Newsletter 25, 2005 - it can be viewed here: Hayao Kawai interview 2005.