Murakami Haruki wins an award...

Interesting... Murakami Haruki has won an award....and although I haven't read enough of his work to be an official fan, I thought I'd mention this.

You can get more information from this article 

http://www.ynet.co.il/english/articles/0,7340,L-3660005,00.html

I am going to have to be honest... I had not heard of the Jerusalem Award up until now.

The "neat" thing about this occasion is that Murakami-san is scheduled to receive it in person, something that he doesn't do very often.

Overseas, Murakami-san is a very popular author and of course in Japan too...however, not as much as you might think.  I have heard Japanese readers say that his novels are too "westernized" in presentation among other things.  I will reserve my opinion on this until I read more of his work.  I am trying to read both the Japanese originals as well as the translated versions so that I can give this a "fair" amount of thought.

 

But it must be nice to be honored by readers of different nationalities and cultures.  Murakami Haruki is one of the fine authors of Japan and deserves recognition inside and outside of Japan...so Congratulations!