Underground (stories) - Definition and Overview

Underground is a book by Haruki Murakami based on the sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway by Aum Shinrikyo in 1995.

Described as a work of "journalistic literature," Underground was originally written in Japanese and was translated by Alfred Birnbaum and Philip Gabriel. Underground combines essays by the author with personal interviews with 60 survivors and 8 former and current Aum members.

In his Introduction (p 6-8), Murakami writes:

What I did not want was a collection of disembodied voices. Perhaps it's an occupational hazard of the novelist's profession, but I am less interested in the 'big picture,' as it were, than in the concrete, irreducible humanity of each individual . . .

The Japanese media had bombarded us with so many in-depth profiles of the Aum cult perpetrators--the 'attackers'--forming such a slick, seductive narrative that the average citizen--the 'victim'--was an afterthought . . . which is why I wanted, if at all possible, to get away from any formula; to recognise that each person on the subway that morning had a face, a life, a family, hopes and fears, contradictions and dilemmas--and that all these factors had a place in the drama . . . <p> Furthermore, I had a hunch that we needed to see a true picture of all the survivors, whether they were severely traumatized or not, in order to better grasp the whole incident. </blockquote>

Related topics

• Murakami Haruki
• Aum Shinrikyo
• Sarin