About the Author

Haruki Murakami was born in Kyoto, Japan, in 1949. He grew up in Kobe and then moved to Tokyo, where he attended Waseda University. After college, Murakami opened a small jazz bar, which he and his wife ran for seven years.

His first novel, Hear the Wind Sing, won the Gunzou Literature Prize for budding writers in 1979. He followed this success with two sequels, Pinball, 1973 and A Wild Sheep Chase, which all together form 'The Trilogy of the Rat'.

Murakami is also the author of the novels Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, Norwegian Wood, Dance Dance Dance, South of the Border, West of the Sun, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Sputnik Sweetheart, Kafka on the Shore, After Dark, 1Q84 and Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage. He has written three short story collections – The Elephant Vanishes, After the Quake and Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman and an illustrated novella, The Strange Library.

Additionally, Murakami has written several works of nonfiction. After the Hanshin earthquake and the Tokyo subway sarin gas attack in 1995, he interviewed surviving victims, as well as members of the religious cult responsible. From these interviews, he published two nonfiction books in Japan, which were selectively combined to form Underground. He also wrote a series of personal essays on running, entitled What I Talk About When I Talk About Running.

The most recent of his many international literary honors is the Jerusalem Prize, whose previous recipients include J. M. Coetzee, Milan Kundera, and V. S. Naipaul. Murakami’s work has been translated into more than 50 languages. Marc Vietor is an actor, born in La Jolla, California and now living in New York. He is a graduate of the Drama Division of the Juilliard School and Yale College. Marc has worked as an Associate Director of Tony Randall's National Actors Theatre on Broadway, variously assisting on four productions. On Broadway he also worked as an adaptor, musical supervisor and producers. Alison Hiroto is a trained singer, actor and dancer. She has toured nationally as Pocahontas in Pocahontas and as Sadako in Sadako and 1,000 Cranes. Internationally, she has performed at the Venice Biennale as well as in London, Rome, Spoleto, Bogota, Taipei, Zagreb and Tirana. She is a member of the Great Jones Repertory Company, Loco 7 Dance Puppet Theatre and NYU's First Look Theatre Company. Mark Boyett is primarily a stage actor. His New York credits include creating the roles of Frank Slate in Clean Alternatives and Rusty in A Play On Words. Regional credits include The Cherry Orchard, The Retreat From Moscow, Wit, The Mystery of Irma Vep, A Dybbuk, and Henry IV Parts I & II.

He is also co-creator of The Diner’s Deck.