Psychologically Minded Novelist Haruki Murakami

Haruki Murakami’s fans tend to say he touches the otherwise-private areas in their minds.

Murakami is a Japanese novelist who is a minimalist with language: He inspires grand journeys of imagination without using too many adjectives. He says he sometimes writes his novels in English—which is not his first language—to limit his vocabulary and assume an odd relationship to ordinary life.

Here’s the video I recently made about him, my favorite living writer.

Ilana Simons is a psychologist in private practice and the editor of Tin House Reels. See her other movies here.