Sputnik's Lover
Translator's Note

“Unless an experience is so utterly defiant that it defies easy verbalization, it cannot be called a real experience.”
The stylistic experiments and setting shifts that shaped Haruki Murakami's world

"Sputnik Lovers" is an important work that showcases Murakami Haruki's unique fantasy and deep emotional descriptions, and also shows a decisive change from his early works.
After the Aum Shinrikyo cult carried out a subway sarin attack targeting an unspecified number of citizens in Japan in 1995, Japanese society was gripped by fear.
Haruki Murakami, who was also deeply shocked, published a collection of reports and interviews with the victims and their families.
This experience led him to realize that “any experience that is not sufficient to reject easy verbalization cannot be considered a real experience,” and he attempted to transform the rhetorical metaphor-centered descriptions he had been using as weapons into more concise, more neutral, more reusable, and more universal sentences.
The novel's dynamism was developed by moving from a past that valued detachment to a stage where commitment was considered.
Through this process of reasoning, Haruki's works became deeper and more mature than before.


“One thing I firmly decided while writing ‘Sputnik Lovers’ was that I wanted to break away from a certain kind of writing style that I had been using (and using as a weapon) until then.
To be specific, what I was trying to break away from might have been something like the 'overflow of metaphors' that I attempted at the beginning of this work.
I decided that in "Sputnik Lovers," I should try to avoid showing some of the rhetorical features of my sentences.
(…) I needed to first remove and discard the ‘protruding’ parts in my writing style.
In the long run, I had to transform my sentences to be simpler, more neutral, more reusable, and more universal.
In other words, it became necessary to gradually shift the dynamism of the novel from the level of style to the level of story.”

Moreover, he broke away from the habit of portraying protagonists of a similar age and with relatively free-spirited occupations, and for the first time in this novel, he featured an ordinary young elementary school teacher as the protagonist.
K, the first-person narrator of the work, was 24 years old, and Haruki was 50 years old at the time.
From his debut work, "Hear the Wind Sing" to "South of the Border, West of the Sun," whenever he wrote in the first-person perspective, he mainly used characters of a similar age to the author or looked back on his past self. However, starting with this work, the protagonist's age gradually became younger, reaching 15 in "Kafka on the Shore."
"Sputnik Lovers" can be seen as a pivotal moment of change and transformation that further developed Haruki Murakami's literary world.


What is particularly interesting in 『Sputnik Lovers』 is that a Korean woman, ‘Mu’, appears as the second female protagonist, seventeen years older than the female protagonist, ‘Sumire’.
There are very few examples of foreigners appearing as protagonists in Haruki Murakami's novels, so it is quite exceptional that he chose to set the protagonist as a Korean woman 17 years older than him.
Is this perhaps a fan service for Korean readers?

Parallel trajectories that circle each other, unable to become one, in the middle of the endless universe.
“Why do we have to be so lonely?
For what reason?
“Is this planet spinning, nourished by the loneliness of its people?”

'Sputnik' is the name of the world's first artificial satellite launched by Russia in October 1957.
Russia, which opened the era of space exploration one step ahead of the United States, also succeeded in sending the first living creature into space a month later by sending the dog Laika aboard Sputnik 2.
Despite its name, which means 'travel companion' in Russian, Laika, who was inside, died alone and lonely in the darkness of space without even knowing English.


The motifs of loneliness, loss, and disconnection that have frequently appeared in Haruki Murakami's works have been expanded into the realm of space in "Sputnik Lovers."
The love between people who meet by chance, share their feelings, and spend time together, but ultimately fail to last, is like the orbit of a satellite.
Haruki Murakami says that solitude is an inevitable process for a person to mature, and that the process of wandering within a closed circuit is the essence of life.


A letter from Sumire arrives for K, who was on summer vacation.
The story is about traveling around Europe accompanying Mu on a business trip.
After finishing their work in Italy and France, the two head to a small Greek island where there is a villa owned by an Englishman they met by chance.
While reading a letter from Sumire, who is in love with him, K feels suffocated and in pain. One day, he receives a call from Myu asking him to come to the island as soon as possible at 1 a.m.
Upon arrival in Greece, a landscape unfolds: the irregular curves of boats bobbing on cobalt blue seas, and the white walls of buildings bathed in bright summer sunlight.
However, what greets him on the secluded island is the news that Sumire has disappeared.


K feels some kind of death on the quiet beach.
As Myu leaves the island to go to the consulate, he is left alone in the villa and discovers a common image in Sumire's writing.
Dreams and divisions, unrealistic yet vivid events, doggedly follow Sumire and Myu.
14 years ago, in a strange incident, Myu lost half of her true self, and Sumire disappeared without a trace from the here and now.
Where did half of Myu and all of Sumire's existence go?

Humans are “descendants of Sputnik, who continues to orbit the sky with the Earth’s gravity as their only string.”
However, the author says that just as the Earth and its satellite are connected by a gravitational force, we can overcome loneliness and isolation through love for one another.
The pilgrimage and quest theme of loneliness, isolation, alienation, and despair, which, after a long period of suffering, leads to the great salvation of love and recovery, is skillfully woven into the warp and weft of various episodes, creating a variety of variations that evoke great emotion.