I enjoy all works of the Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami. I generally like to read Asian literature and count novelists such as Natsuo Kirino and Junichirou Tanizaki but Murakami has to be my favourite. I have read about 2/3 of his translated works, the latest read was Kafka on the Shore. I intend to pick up his latest translated work, After Dark once the softcover version is for sale here.

It's a pity I can't read Japanese well. One of my motivations to pick up the language (hopefully in the near future!) is so that I would at least, hopefully, be able to read the Japanese literature which I love so much in its native prose. A loss in translation is inevitable, even among the most reputable and accurate translators, furthermore, some works, even for those as renowned as Murakami's, just never get translated into English, what more for even more obscure authors.