As a young man, Haruki Murakami played records and mixed drinnks at his Tokyo jazz club, Peter Cat, then wrote at the kitchen table until the sun came up. He loves music of all kinds and when he writes, his words have a music all of their own, much of it learned from jazz. Besides being the distinguished translator of Murakami's work, Professor Rubin is a self-confessed fan. He has written a book for other fans who want to know more about this reclusive writer. He reveals the autobiographical elements in Murakami's fiction; explains how he developed a distinctive new style in Japanese; and how, on his return to Japan from America, he came to regard the Kobe earthquake (in which his parents' house was destroyed) and the Tokyo subway gas attack as twin manifestations of a violence lying just beneath the surface of Japanese life. In tracing Murakami's career, Rubin uses interviews conducted with the author between 1993 and 2001, and draws on insights and observations gathered from having collaborated with Murakami for more than a decade in preparing his works for an English-speaking audience.