I have been living under a rock lately, with my upcoming wedding and writing on my days off from teaching. I had not even learned that Murakami won the Jerusalem prize, or that he’d given an amazing speech. You can read the full text of it over at Salon. The quote above is beautiful and illuminates how a fiction writer can use old folk rhetoric and good storytelling to make a statement. I’m not sure if the statement is political, I only know it is humanistic and inspiring.