ABOUT THE AUTHOR
When faced with the comprehensive list of authors to choose from with this brief, I decided to choose an author I knew well, one I was semi-familiar with, and one out of the blue. Throughout the course of my initial research I narrowed down my author of choice to Haruki Murakami; the author I previously didn't know. Before this choice was made however a quick look at each of these choices was necessary.
DOUGLAS ADAMS
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Book Cover by Jonathan Burton for The Folio Society
Douglas Adam's is an author I was semi-familiar with when starting this brief. I'd watched The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy fondly with my brother when we were younger, and my dad owns one of the first editions of the book; what drew me to him as a potential focus for this project was the vast array of visual information at my disposal. Being very imaginative with the characters and locations featured in many of his books, I knew I would have a lot to draw upon but more importantly play with. As an author he would allow me to exaggerate and create quite freely. Through initial research it was also interesting to find out his was an advocate for environmentalism and conservation, something I think to be very notable. He was also a strong atheist, which I found very interesting and a little informing when juxtaposed next to the explorations of 'the question of life' in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. After Adam's passing, Biologist Richard Dawkins wrote a dedication to him in his book 'The God Delusion' stating "Science has lost a friend, literature has lost a luminary, the mountain gorilla and the black rhino have lost a gallant defender."
EDGAR ALLEN POE
Edgar Allen Poe & Gris Grimly
The second author I chose to research was one who's work I was very fond of during my teenage years. What really got me into Edgar Allen Poe was an illustrated book of a few of his short stories by Gris Grimly. The fusion of Poe's melancholy and slightly bizarre writings with Grimly's oddly disturbed but welcoming illustrations really struck a cord with me. Since then I've read a few of Poe's tales and poems, relishing the morbid curiosity they seem to draw out of people.
During research I was surprised at how truly important Poe was to the literary world. Whilst I knew his works were well known, I was previously unaware that he was often regarded as a central figure of Romanticism in the United States, generally considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre and was the first well-known American writer to try to earn a living through writing alone. These facts, along with other pieces of information available about Poe's life, and death, ensured that not only the material that I would read by Poe, but his life and who he was as a person, would also be interesting throughout this project. Aligning the true Edgar Allen Poe against the usual misinterpreted version of who he was could prove as interesting subject matter as his literary works.
HARUKI MURAKAMI
Book covers for Murakami's books by Noma Bar
The final author I chose to look into was Murakami. I wanted one author to look at with completely fresh eyes, so I asked my dad for a recommendation and Murakami was chosen. Known for his typically Western story telling, a lot of Japanese traditionalists discarded Murakami's work as not being truly 'Japanese literature'. Despite this however, his work was extremely popular, especially among young adults throughout the globe. As a result of this, and his success with critics, Murakami was thrown into the public eye after releasing his breakthrough book Norwegian Wood, something he far from relished.
A lot of his books have reoccurring themes of isolation and loneliness, as well as being slightly surreal and melancholic. What really drew me to him as a writer however was this notion of mixing together the surreal and the realistic. What Murakami seemed to be able to do was capture extremely raw and honest human emotions in a world seen through a slightly nostalgic and rose tinted viewpoint. After reading Norwegian Wood what stayed with me was the way he was able to tell a story with perfect pace, uncensored authenticity, and describe genuine human sadness in a way that felt romanticized. But it wasn't, it wasn't hyperbolic and generic it was merely truthful, and there's a beauty in that I find is rarely captured well.
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