music and literature which later had a profound effect on his writing style and distinguished him from his fellow Japanese counterparts who frequently accuse him of being “too Western“.

His books have been translated into some 42 languages and has often been mentioned as a possible recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Waseda University (早稲田大学) (1968)

I went to the cafeteria afterwards and ate a cold, tasteless lunch alone. Then I sat in the sun and observed the campus scene. I sat there for a long time, watching the campus and the people passing through it, and hoping, too, that I might see Midori. But she never appeared, and when the noon break ended, I went to the library to prepare for my German class. — Norwegian Wood

Murakami attended WasedaUniversity in Tokyo, considered to be one of Japan’s most prestigious universities, where he studied drama in 1968. Its main campus in Shinjuku is a leafy affair whose buildings are an odd jumble of architectural styles, some mimicking traditional European colleges, while others are decidedly more modern.

While not being terribly interested in his studies, it was at Waseda where he would spend hours reading film scripts in the Theater Museum, modelled on the historic Fortune Playhouse in London. It was also where he met his wife, Yōko Takahashi, who he married in 1971 (against his parents’ wishes at the time).

I visited the university during its annual open day for new students and it immediately took me back to my own induction to Durham where I studied a decade