Reuters, The Guardian and other outlets are reporting that, Japan’s Haruki Murakami, one of the currently most-read writers in the world is to host a ‘lockdown’ DJ show that will be broadcast on May 22, 2020 on Tokyo FM and 38 other radio stations across Japan.
Murakami’s idea is to “try to lift the nation’s spirits under the coronavirus lockdown.” As The Guardian notes, “Murakami, the author of books including Norwegian Wood and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, and a perennial favorite to win a Nobel prize, will play some of his favorite songs and answer listener questions in a two-hour show.” The show will go under the title Stay Home Special, and is named “for the Tokyo governor Yuriko Koike’s recent plea for residents to stop going outside.”
Murakami wrote that he is hoping “that the power of music can do a little to blow away some of the corona-related blues that have been piling up.”
Both the daily and Reuters note that “since 2018, Murakami has sporadically hosted a prerecorded one-hour show on Tokyo FM, with the music enthusiast playing a selection of the 10,000 records in his collection. These have included some jazz – he opened and ran a jazz club with his wife, Yoko, for seven years – and pop music that the marathon runner enjoys while exercising, including the Beach Boys, Joey Ramone, and Hall and Oates. Regarded as a recluse in Japan, his shows have been the first time many fans have heard him speak.”
Before his first broadcast in 2018, Murakami wrote the following: “It has been my hobby to collect records and CDs since my childhood, and thanks to that, my house is inundated with such things. However, I have often felt a sense of guilt toward the world while listening to such amazing music and having a good time alone. I thought it may be good to share such good times with other people while chatting over a glass of wine or a cup of coffee.”
