Von Beruf Schriftsteller

"Von Beruf Schriftsteller" is the German edition of Haruki Murakami's "Novelist as a Vocation" (Shokugyō to shite no shōsetsuka), a collection of essays in which Murakami discusses his development and daily practice as a writer. Referencing Kafka, Raymond Chandler, Dostoevsky, and Hemingway among others, he reflects on what literature has meant to him personally rather than offering a formal writing manual.

The essays cover his unglamorous path into writing, his ambivalent view of literary prizes, the impact of the years he spent living abroad, and the nuts and bolts of his working life — how many pages he writes per day, why he considers reading widely the single most important habit for an aspiring novelist, and why he treats physical fitness (his long-distance running) as inseparable from his writing discipline.

The book is translated by Ursula Gräfe, Murakami's principal German translator, for DuMont.