Novelist and translator Haruki Murakami won the Frank O'Conner International Short Story Award on Sunday for his recently published collection of short stories "Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman," the award's sponsor announced.
Murakami, 57, was selected by a five-member jury and will receive a 35,000 euro cash award, the largest in the world for short stories.
"This is a truly wonderful collection by a master craftsman of prose fiction. . . . He writes with a terrific sense of magic, as well as with that contemporary ability to create extended monologues of fear," the jury said in a statement.
Jay Rubin, a professor of Japanese literature at Harvard University and Murakami's longtime translator, attended the ceremony in Cork, Ireland, and accepted the award on his behalf, the organizer said, adding that Rubin will share the prize with Murakami.
The award, created in memory of the late novelist O'Conner, is the highlight of the annual Frank O'Conner Short Story Festival, which ran from Wednesday to Sunday.
Murakami's work has been translated into 38 languages and "Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman" is his third anthology of short stories to be published in English, the organizer said.