Over the years, you've had a lot of different occupations: novelist, TV presenter, record producer, film-maker. What do you think of as your main profession?

Basically, of course, I am a writer. We've almost finished with the editing of my new movie Kyoko, so these days I think of myself as a writer and a film director. That's my creative side; TV and record producing aren't really creative.

Tell us about your interest in Cuban music. How did you get into it, and why?

A friend of mine from New York was working as coordinator on a musical in Cuba called Noche Tropical, so I went out there to have a look. The musicians there are very, very good. They have this great national college of arts where they gather together the best students from all over Cuba and give them a free classical education. When they've learned to perfect their classical technique, they go onto salsa or jazz. Technique may not be everything, but theirs is excellent.

Have you been back there often?

Twelve times. I like the music, I like the people too, and the land is pretty, but the reason I went back so often is that, in the film Kyoko, the character of the lead actress is supposed to be studying Cuban dance. On top of that, the leading lady changed three times, so we had to keep going back.

And you're a bit of a celebrity in Cuba.

Well, not generally, only among musicians.

Isn't there a popular song there called "Murakami Mambo"?

The band I promote wrote that song. They're called NG La Banda, The New Generation Band. The leader of the band is the same age as me and he's a very good friend. When they came to Japan for the first time, I invited him over to my place, and he wrote some mambo songs. One of them he named "Murakami Mambo." It wasn't such a big hit and it's not actually a song about me. They just took my name.

Do you make money promoting Cuban music here?

It doesn't make any money. But it's very high-quality stuff, so there's a lot of potential. Politics would make promotion difficult in the U.S. but in Europe, say, or other Latin American countries, the music could be very popular. I just haven't had time to get around to that yet.

In your novels 69 and Almost Transparent Blue, you were writing about the hybrid culture around the U.S. bases. Are there parallels between that and the mixed culture of Cuba?

I was born and grew up near the American Navy base in Sasebo in Kyushu, and I often took as the subject of my novels the relationship between me, Japanese culture and American culture. But it's difficult to describe the direct relationship between the two countries and, if you don't go abroad you can't really understand Japan. It's only in other countries that you can get any perspective of Japan; what the Japanese mentality is. When I was making the new film, Kyoko, I used motifs like a Cuban-American GI and Cuban dance and music. It's difficult to explain, but putting another country in the story helped me to express not a dislike of or a yearning for America, but rather how I had been influenced and what I had learned from it.

Is Kyoko based on a book or was it written as a screenplay?

I wrote the script and then novelized it. It's a road movie, beginning in New York and going to Miami, and then switching to Cuba. The subject of the film is dance and music. It's a good theme for a film, but difficult to describe in a book. Some ideas are like that. Last year, for instance, I wrote a novel called Five Minutes Later, a simulation about what would have happened if Japan hadn't surrendered and kept on fighting World War Two. It would cost a huge amount of money to make that as a film.

You say you don't make money out of music production. What about films?

I think Kyoko will make money.

But you've lost money in the past.

I haven't made or lost money before. Somebody else put up the cash; I just made the films.

Do you make films to please yourself, or do you think of them as commercial products?

I'm very much an auteur. I could never make a big-scale, commercial picture. I can only create a small world of my own in my films.

You've been most successful as a novelist. But it sounds as if that happened pretty much by accident.

I don't think I could ever have been a salary man. I had to do something for myself. I was painting but I became successful as a novelist. When I think back on it now, I realize that that was always what I was best suited to.

In Coin Locker Babies, one of the characters says "when you get famous, you've got to forget all about the past," and at the very end of Almost Transparent Blue, the main character, Ryu, writes to his friend Lily: "Just because I've written this book, don't think I've changed. I'm like I was back then." You were 23 then. Have you changed?

Hmmm . . . that's a good question. In the end, well, how should I put it? People often say that when somebody becomes famous, they change. But I wasn't changed at all. It's not about identity. I think whether you change or not has to do with your sense of priorities. My own priorities haven't changed much since I was a child. But in order to keep your priorities there are some things you have to forget, and some things you should remember. That sounds a bit vague, but that's how I understand it.

So, if Lily met Ryu now, she would think you are just the same person as she knew then.

I don't know. I think she would say that I haven't changed. Maybe. I just have more money.

Did you get a reply to your letter?

No. That epilogue was part of the novel. I didn't just want to write something like, "Profound thanks to Kodansha for publishing this book." So, I did it that way, with the letter. It was a kind of lie.

Was Lily based on a real person?

There were a few models that I based her on.

Did you have any literary models for that book?

When I wrote Almost Transparent Blue I was 23. I wanted to write like French novelists, like Jean Genet and so on. But when I re-read it, I found it was very Japanese, which was interesting. It was delicate and kind of flat, in the way that a Japanese painting is flat. Western paintings are solid, they use perspective. But it's in the Japanese character to picture everything on one plane. This microphone here, those shades there, you over there. This isn't a very good example, but if there's some good food here, and somebody is committing a murder over there, we would describe both of them in the same kind of way. Maybe it's a lack of morality, but it's part of the Japanese character. There's never been a war inside Japan itself. We're a peaceful country, and even though there are lots of good things and bad things here, we look at things equally without right and wrong. That's vague, I suppose, but it's an interesting idea to try to express.

Did you realize as you wrote Blue that it was going to shock people?

No. I just write. I can't afford to think about what other people will make of things. I don't even imagine how it's going to be translated. I just try my best to write something good.

You've been criticized for writing about shocking subjects--sex and drugs and so on. Amy Yamada even accused you of deliberately choosing controversial subjects with no other purpose than to shock. Is that fair?

I don't know. Some people might think so. Recently my child's been getting to the age when he reads my work sometimes, so I'm beginning to think I should write something which doesn't include sex or S&M.

Really? Having a child changed the way you write?

Yeah. He's fifteen, and as he's grown older, he's started reading my novels. He asked me, "Dad, please write some novels without any sex."

Has he read Almost Transparent Blue?

I don't think so.

Because you don't want him to?

He probably just hasn't gotten around to it.

What about your own parents' reaction?

I don't worry about them at all.

Your mother once said that she was glad when you won the Akutagawa Prize, but that Almost Transparent Blue wasn't her kind of book. Has she read it yet?

She seems to have given up half-way through. And that's fair enough given her age.

Do you ever regret or feel embarrassed by anything you've written?

Not at all. They are great novels.

Does criticism bother you?

Yes, it does.

What sort of things bother you?

I like compliments, even if they're from people who don't really understand what I'm doing.

The critic Shin'ichi Nakazawa said that even after he criticized you, you were very nice to him.

Well, the concept of criticism isn't established in Japan yet. It's difficult to explain properly, but true criticism comes from different perspectives. For instance, in the U.S. or Europe, there are many different ways of thinking. There you can criticize from the Catholic point of view, from the immigrant point of view, from the black point of view, or the poor one. There's nothing like that in Japan--only people talking among themselves. I don't get angry or become friends with somebody simply because he criticizes or praises me. True criticism requires a consistent point of view on the part of the critic. But there isn't any in Japan, so I don't criticize other people and I don't care if anybody criticizes me.

Are you conscious of having an image? Is that important for a writer?

If there's something I really want to do, like this film Kyoko, I will do or think anything which will help me succeed. I imagine there are plenty of people who might not like me or give me credit. And when people give me a hard time, it makes me angry, but there's no point in discussing it with them. The quickest way to make them appreciate me or like me is by doing the things I most want to do: making films or writing novels. So, I don't care about my image and I don't bother trying to improve it. I'm perfectly clear about that.

In Coin Locker Babies, there's a funny moment where one of the characters is being taught how to give interviews. His boss hires scriptwriters who train him how to give cool answers, to create the right effect. Have you ever done that?

It was just part of the story. I don't do that myself.

You published an essay this year in which you rejected the "stupid noise" of the 1960s. Can you explain what you meant by that?

I don't believe in the politics of the '60s, although I appreciate the culture. As soon as the OPEC oil shock came along, we were told "Stop making a fuss: the earth's resources are limited." And the whole counter-culture, the anti-establishment movements, just crumbled. After that, the only choice they had was terrorism. It just showed how insubstantial the political movement in the '60s was. There were many good things that came out of that culture, but politically it went nowhere.

When you read books by other writers of your generation, like Haruki Murakami, you get a strong feeling of nostalgia, almost grief, for what was lost in the early '70s.

I don't think that way at all. Haruki would feel a sense of loss if he'd been born in the Edo Period. He's that kind of person.

There are a few things in your books which seem now to be almost prophetic. At the end of Coin Locker Babies, for instance, the hero releases poison gas in Tokyo.

Aum Shinrikyo is a gathering of lonely people; they did it to protect their religious organization. My characters did it not to protect something, but for a kind of rebirth--to destroy something that was once dirty or ugly. People often tell me it's similar to Aum, but I think it is totally different. After all, I often take sex, destruction and politics as subjects, but I'm using them as motifs--trying to tell readers to recover the strength for life. Anyone who got the message properly would never want to destroy society: I think they would live very peacefully. So if there are any similarities with my novel, it's not my fault. If Aum people had read my book, they might never have joined.

In Almost Transparent Blue you wrote about destructive, violent sexual relationships between American servicemen and Japanese women. What do you make of the trouble in Okinawa after the rape of the schoolgirl? There seems to be a sense in which the American presence there is seen as a predatory, negative influence.

You have to distinguish between different issues. For example, they should give adequate compensation to the girl who was hurt, and they should hold the criminals responsible. But the problem as I see it is much deeper. When you turn on the radio, all of the DJs throw in some English. Look at magazines--Japan has become Americanized without us even noticing it. Every film which is a hit in the U.S. becomes a hit in Japan. Culturally, that's even more terrifying. We've lost our sense of direction. What should Japan do next? We saved up all this money, what are we going to do with it? The world is watching us. We have to--and I am desperately trying to--find some sense of our own value and perspective. DJs say "Hi! Everybody!" in English. People dress like rappers just because they think they look cool. I'm not a rightist, but I don't believe that everything American is good. We don't have our own sense of values, and that is what created something like Aum Shinrikyo.

But when you were a kid, you obviously had a lot of fun living near the base. You went to jazz clubs, hung out with black guys and enjoyed yourself. Can't that be a positive influence?

It's not a question of negative or positive. I simply liked American culture, films, music, novels. But Japan's a hysterical country. We take these things in a banzai kind of way--or we reject them. We can't express ourselves through Kabuki these days, but that doesn't mean we should try to express ourselves through rap. We need new ways to express ourselves, and that's difficult. It's just too easy to become a rightist--or a slave of American values.

Do you think the American military should leave Okinawa and Japan?

Yeah, it should. If it could be done easily.

Could it be done easily?

No, it couldn't.

What is your biggest regret?

Nothing.

No regrets?

No. I never look behind me.

Are you a happy person?

I don't know.

Do you have ups and downs, black moments, or are you quite stable?

I have nasty moments, and I get depressed sometimes. When I have something like this new film, something I really want to do, it's usually okay. So, I always need to have something like that ahead of me.

What sort of things bring you down, make you depressed?

I usually get depressed when I am in bad physical condition, hungry or tired. And I get depressed when my books don't sell very well, or don't sell as much as I expected. When you are in that situation, writing something good makes a difference.

How would you like to be remembered after you are gone?

When I die, that's the end of it, so I don't care. I want to enjoy myself while I'm here.

(callout)

"We need new ways to express ourselves, and that's difficult. It's just too easy to become a rightist--or a slave of American values."