SOURCE: “Adventurous,” in Australian Book Review, Vol. 158, February, 1994, pp. 43–44.

In the following review, Wearne provides an overview of Murakami's works and career through Dance, Dance, Dance.

Every adventurous reader of fiction ought to have a private hoard of novelists, preferably from a non-English writing background, who have escaped the appalling nonsense of Booker style PR hype. Luckily publishers like Collins Harvill set about promoting such writers; unluckily for Australia though our major literary pages often neglect to review the bulk of such output. You will have your favourites in such a category but let this reviewer recommend the following: Jose Donoso, Etienne Leroux, Jose Saramago, Eduardo Mendoza, Saiichi Maruya and Haruki Murakami.

If I see a bookshelf containing a Murakami I feel assured that its owner is probably a person of vigorous taste and intellect. The writer is male, Japanese, by now in his mid-forties. His two novels...