Dancing Around the Point

Haruki Murakami is a prolific and distinguished novelist; Seiji Ozawa is an internationally renowned orchestral conductor. In December 2009, Ozawa was diagnosed with esophageal cancer and in the ensuing months, while receiving treatments, he underwent a back operation. During his difficult but successful recuperation and the modified return to professional commitments that followed, he and his friend Murakami hit on the idea of recording the frequent informal talks about music they had been enjoying, and transcribing the results as a book. Murakami makes no claim to “inside” music knowledge, but is an avid music lover and cherishes a large collection of musical recordings. The conversations, which took place during the period of Ozawa’s recovery, from November 2010 to July 2011, at various locales (Japan, Hawaii, Switzerland), therefore use a non-technical vocabulary.

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