Dreaming Murakami

For readers in her native Denmark, translator Mette Holm is synonymous with Haruki Murakami in Danish. We meet Holm as she begins her work to translate the celebrity author’s nearly 30 year old debut novel, Kaze no uta o kike, and follow her on her journey to Japan to submerge herself in Japanese culture and language. A previous resident of Japan, Holm has known Murakami for nigh on 20 years. As one link in her challenging work, Holm visits arcade halls, cafés and sushi joints in her old neighbourhoods in Tokyo, chatting with locals, colleagues and language experts.

As a metaphor on Murakami’s thoughts on parallel universes, a two meters tall frog suddenly appears on the Tokyo underground; and just like in the author’s literary universes, the distinction between what is real and what is fiction is increasingly blurred. As Mette searches for the perfect turns of phrase, the frog appears in poetic sequences in which it talks about its ongoing fight to save the world from dark powers. Dreaming Murakami is not just a thorough portrayal of the job of a translator, but also a philosophical and metaphysical reflection on language, culture, and the unknown.