Underground (stories)

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

Related Topics:
Haruki Murakami - Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway - Aum Shinrikyo - 1995

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Described as a work of "journalistic literature," Underground was originally written in Japanese and was translated into English by Alfred Birnbaum and Philip Gabriel. Underground combines essays by the author with personal interviews with 60 survivors. The English edition includes interviews with 8 former and current Aum members which were originally published in Japanese as Post-Underground.

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

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What I did not want was a collection of disembodied voices. Perhaps

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it's an occupational hazard of the novelist's profession, but I am

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less interested in the 'big picture,' as it were, than in the

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concrete, irreducible humanity of each individual . . .

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The Japanese media had bombarded us with so many in-depth profiles

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of the Aum cult perpetrators--the 'attackers'--forming such a slick,

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seductive narrative that the average citizen--the 'victim'--was an

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afterthought . . . which is why I wanted, if at all possible, to get

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away from any formula; to recognise that each person on the subway

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that morning had a face, a life, a family, hopes and fears,

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contradictions and dilemmas--and that all these factors had a place

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in the drama . . .

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Furthermore, I had a hunch that we needed to see a true picture of

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all the survivors, whether they were severely traumatized or not, in

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order to better grasp the whole incident.

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