Murakami comes out of exile to engage readers

Tokyo

WORRIED about your future, the meaning of life or the realness of unreal things? Ask Japanese author Haruki Murakami for enlightenment - or as much as a surrealist can give.

Though a perennial favourite for the Nobel Prize in Literature, Mr Murakami is so notoriously reclusive that nobody knows for sure where in the world he lives, and he has joked about biting fans who get too close.