After the quake
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- The correct title of this article is after the quake. The initial letter is shown capitalized due to technical restrictions.
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| Author | Haruki Murakami |
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| Original title | 神の子どもたちはみな踊る Kami no kodomo-tachi wa mina odoru, literally "The children of the gods all dance." |
| Translator | Jay Rubin |
| Country | Japan |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | General Fiction |
| Publisher | Harvill Seeker (UK) / Vintage International (US) |
| Released | 2000 (Japan) / 2002 (UK) |
| Media type | Print (Hardback) |
| Pages | 144 (UK hardback edition) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-375-41390-1 |
| Preceded by | Sputnik Sweetheart |
| Followed by | Kafka on the Shore |
after the quake (神の子どもたちはみな踊る Kami no kodomo-tachi wa mina odoru?) is a collection of short stories by Japanese author Haruki Murakami. First published in 2000, it was released in English as after the quake in 2002 (translator Jay Rubin notes that Murakami "insisted" the title "should be all lower-case").
[edit] Background
The stories were written in response to Japan's 1995 Kobe earthquake, and each story is affected peripherally by the disaster. Along with Underground, a collection of interviews and essays about the 1995 Tokyo gas attacks, and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, a complex exploration of Japan's modern history, after the quake represents part of an effort on the part of Murakami to adopt a more purposeful exploration of the Japanese national conscience.
The stories in after the quake repeat motifs, themes, and elements common in much of Murakami's earlier short stories and novels, but also present some notable stylistic changes. All six stories are told in the third person, as opposed to Murakami's much more familiar first person narrative established in his previous work. Additionally, only one of the stories contains clear supernatural elements, which are present in the majority of Murakami's stories. All of the stories are set in February 1995, the month between the Kobe earthquake and the Tokyo gas attacks. Translator Jay Rubin says of the collection, "The central characters in after the quake live far from the physical devastation, which they witness only on TV or in the papers, but for each of them the massive destruction unleashed by the earth itself becomes a turning point in their lives. They are forced to confront an emptiness they have borne inside them for years."
[edit] Contents
| Story | Originally published in |
|---|---|
| UFO in Kushiro | The New Yorker |
| Landscape with Flatiron | Ploughshares |
| All God's Children Can Dance | Harper's |
| Thailand | Granta |
| Super-Frog Saves Tokyo | GQ |
| Honey Pie | The New Yorker |
[edit] References
- Haruki Murakami and the Music of Words by Jay Rubin, p. 255-257 (Murakami's insistence on lower-case spelling of after the quake; analysis of stories).
