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Underground is a book by
Murakami Haruki (also known as
Haruki Murakami) based on the
sarin gas attacks 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 recognize 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 . . .
-
- 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."
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