A Jeruzsálemi Könyvvásár díszvendége, Murakami Haruki elfogadta az 1963-ban alapított Jeruzsálem-díjat, amit a szabadság eszméjét leghitelesebben megjelenítő szerzőnek ítélnek oda minden évben. A tízezer dollárral járó kitüntetést a szerző annak ellenére vette át, hogy több arab szervezet is levélben kérte, gondolja át és ne fogadja el a díjat, legyen figyelemmel a palasztinokra is.
A Haaretz lehozta Murakami beszédét a díjátadó ünnepségen, itt egy részlet belőle, a teljes szövegért katt a továbbra:
I have come to Jerusalem today as a novelist, which is to say as a professional spinner of lies.
Of course, novelists are not the only ones who tell lies. Politicians do it, too, as we all know. Diplomats and military men tell their own kinds of lies on occasion, as do used car salesmen, butchers and builders. The lies of novelists differ from others, however, in that no one criticizes the novelist as immoral for telling them. Indeed, the bigger and better his lies and the more ingeniously he creates them, the more he is likely to be praised by the public and the critics. Why should that be?
My answer would be this: Namely, that by telling skillful lies - which is to say, by making up fictions that appear to be true - the novelist can bring a truth out to a new location and shine a new light on it. In most cases, it is virtually impossible to grasp a truth in its original form and depict it accurately. This is why we try to grab its tail by luring the truth from its hiding place, transferring it to a fictional location, and replacing it with a fictional form. In order to accomplish this, however, we first have to clarify where the truth lies within us. This is an important qualification for making up good lies.
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Today, however, I have no intention of lying. I will try to be as honest as I can. There are a few days in the year when I do not engage in telling lies, and today happens to be one of them. >>>Tovább
