Joi Ito
Related: Japan - technology
Note
Ryu Murakami is one of Neoteny's advisory board members, the author of "Coin Locker Babies" and won the Akutagawa award for "Almost Transparent Blue". He visited our office today. In "In Coin Locker Babies" he wrote about two boys who are abandoned in coin lockers and grow up and gassed Tokyo. (This is before the Ohm Shinrikyo subway event.) His last book "Exodus in the Hopeful Country" is about junior high school students who help cause a revolution in Japan with the help of the Internet. We talked quite a bit before he wrote this book and that discussion along with his discussions with other people before he wrote the book also became a book... --Joi Ito, Oct 11, 2002, --http://joi.ito.com/archives/2002/10/11/ryu_murakami_visited_today.htmlI first met Ryu Murakami in 1998 through Ryuichi Sakamoto. They are good friends. Ryu Murakami was looking for someone to talk to about computer hackers as part of research for his book. Since them, we've hung out a few times. I actually see Ryu Murakami more often than I see Ryuichi Sakamoto these days. But I don't get to see either of them as much as I wish I could. They are both on Neoteny's advisory board...
In preparation for meeting with Ryu Murakami, I read "Coin Locker Babies", "Almost Transparent Blue", and "69"... I loved them all. I read them in English. The Japanese is probably better, but the English translations are excellent. --Comment from Joi Ito on October 13, 2002 10:09 AM
http://joi.ito.com/archives/2002/10/11/ryu_murakami_visited_today.html