BERLIN (Kyodo) -- Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami sent a message of encouragement to Hong Kongs pro-democracy protesters in Berlin Friday, drawing parallels between their situation and that of people confined by the Berlin Wall and ongoing conflict in Gaza. Murakami is the first Japanese author awarded the Welt-Literaturpreis by German daily newspaper Die Welt since the 10,000-euro prize was established in 1999. Accepting the prize, he spoke of his own memories of the Berlin Wall prior to its fall 25 years ago, and attributed ongoing conflicts throughout the world to a system of walls that drive people apart based on intolerance, greed and fear. Murakami said it is the task of novelists to help readers pass through these walls, and that harnessing the power of each persons imagination could be the starting point of something. A world without walls can be created in the quiet but sustained effort to keep on singing, to keep on telling stories, stories about a better and freer world to come, without losing heart, he said. We can see (a world without walls) with our own eyes -- we can even touch it with our own hands if we try hard. Id like to send this message to the young people in Hong Kong who are struggling against their wall right now at this moment. Student-led blockades of major thoroughfares in Hong Kong have continued since Sept. 28 in response to the Aug. 31 decision by Beijing authorities to restrict candidates for the territorys 2017 chief executive election to those vetted by a committee. In February 2009, Murakami accepted the Jerusalem Prize despite calls to boycott it in the wake of Israels large-scale offensive in Gaza. Speaking in Jerusalem, he compared walls to authoritarian systems and military might and eggs thrown against the walls to individual lives, concluding that he will always stand on the side of the egg. Murakami has had his stories translated into many languages, and has often been mentioned as a potential recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature. The English edition of his latest novel, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, topped the New York Times best-seller list in its category following its release in August.
Posted on: Sat, 08 Nov 2014 06:21:34 +0000
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