It was at the stroke of midnight one Friday last April when a Tokyo bookstore opened its doors to more than a hundred people who had queued up to grab a copy of their favourite author, Haruki Murakami's latest novel, 'Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage'.The midnight book launch was just the beginning. The book sold one million copies in its very first week on release in Japan; and translations in German, Spanish and Dutch have been topping the bestseller charts ever since. Translated from the Japanese into English by J. Philip Gabriel, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage is scheduled for release in August this year.In an exclusive interview with us, J. Philip Gabriel talks about the challenges of being the voice of Murakami, the pleasure of working with an author who is generosity personified and why a Nobel Prize cannot be the supreme judge of any writer’s accomplishment.Haruki Murakami is a translator himself and has translated American writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald, J. D. Salinger, Raymond Carver and John Irving into Japanese. “Murakami understands and appreciates the challenges of working between English and Japanese. He is always generous with his time. When I have questions, I run these by Murakami via email and he responds quickly to any parts I have trouble with. Murakami and/or his staff read through the first draft of my translations and make suggestions and changes,” says Philip. Murakami’s works have been translated into more than 40 languages and have featured on the bestselling lists across the world, from South Korea to Australia, Italy, Germany and China. Would it be correct to assume Murakami as a writer ‘found in translation’? “If it means he is best approached or understood in translation, I would have to disagree. If it means he has more readers who read him in translation than in the original Japanese, I am not sure if this is accurate, but wouldn't be surprised if it is, since he has been translated into so many foreign languages,” argues Philip.After Jay Rubin's English translation of Norwegian Wood (1987) was released in 2000, Murakami gained prominence in the English-speaking world. With Sputnik Sweetheart (2001), Kafka on the Shore (2005) and 1Q84 (2011); Murakami’s books smashed all sales records in the UK and US. Murakami started being perceived as the most 'Western' of Japanese authors. But, is this a fair representation? “There is a danger of promoting and translating mainly the type of writers who are more easily understood by Western audiences, or homogenizing the culturally distinct or culturally specific aspects of works to make them more easily digestible to a foreign audience. We see this in advertising for books when reviewers strain to fit a non-Western writer into a more understandable label (Endo Shusaku, for instance, being called the Graham Greene of Japan). We are too comfortable with the familiar, when we should be trying to challenge ourselves and extend our understanding of difference," asserts Philip.How difficult is it to bridge the structural and grammatical gap between English and Japanese for a translator? “It’s a real challenge. The order of information in Japanese is often nearly the reverse of English, I sometimes feel I’m giving away the punch line too soon when I translate a Japanese sentence into English. Cultural differences are the most difficult to get across in translation. Day to day lifestyle differences, differences in interpersonal interaction, etc. are aspects of life and writing that Japanese readers take for granted but which become a kind of stumbling block to understanding for English readers. As an academic I sometimes wish I could add footnotes, but commercial publishers usually don’t allow these,” laments Philip. Apart from novels, Philip Gabriel has also translated Murakami's short stories and works of non-fiction. Ask him about the most challenging work of all and Philip replies, "I did find Underground (2000) a challenge because I was dealing with the voices of eight different people—the cult members he (Murakami) interviewed—as well as Murakami’s voice as narrator and interviewer. But probably the most challenging work of all was Kafka on the Shore because of the unique voices of the two main characters—Kafka and Nakata. These characters were unlike any in his previous works."Haruki Murakami enjoys running. From smoking as many as sixty cigarettes a day to running an average 36 miles per week (with one day off); Murakami understood quite early in life how important it is for a novelist to keep fit. He closed down his jazz bar in Kokunbunji, Tokyo and took up writing and running seriously. He was in his early thirties then, he is 65-years-old today. For all the miles that he has run as a marathoner, he has achieved greater milestones as a writer. In his slim memoir, 'What I Talk About When I Talk About Running' (2008); Murakami talks about the story of his life as a runner that eventually gave birth to the writer in him. Do his translators too follow a strict fitness routine like him? “I certainly am not the athlete he is, but I do try to work at a set time, mostly early morning, and translate a set number of pages per day (a rough draft of 3-4 pages). It is daunting sometimes to consider translating books of 500-600 pages and I try to take it one day at a time. If you look up at the distant peak of the mountain you're climbing you can get dizzy and discouraged, so I train my gaze on the path before me and take a step at a time. I guess I’m more a hiker or walker than a runner," reveals Philip.Haruki Murakami was one of the front-runners for the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2013. Apparently, fans of Murakami, who like to be called Harukists, had gathered at a cafe in Tokyo with bottles of champagne for a celebration hours before the announcement. After the Swedish Academy awarded the Nobel to Canadian author Alice Munro, 'Harukists' across the globe went into mourning. Ask Philip if he too was part of the Harukists club and he says, “Of course, it would be a great accomplishment if Murakami wins the Nobel, but I don’t think that is the ultimate yardstick for judging a writer. Murakami is more focused on exploring new areas. I have been devoted to his writing since I first read it in 1986. As a reader and translator, I look forward to new and exciting works rather than new prizes.": J. Philip Gabriel, Professor of East Asian studies at the University of Arizona, has translated major works by Haruki Murakami including Kafka on the Shore (for which he was awarded the PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize), South of the Border, West of the Sun; 1Q84 (Book 3) and Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman (with Jay Rubin) among others. Philip Gabriel has also translated works by Nobel Prize-winner Kenzaburō Ōe, Shimada Masahiko, Kuroi Senji, Yoshimura Akira, Oe Kenzaburo and Yoshida Shuichi. Philip’s translation of one of Yoshida’s books, titled ‘Parade’, released this month in the UK.(Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage will be available in hardback and ebook (Harvill Secker/Vintage Books) on 12th August 2014)(Originally published on March 06, 2014)