which is why I wanted, if at all possible, to get away from any formula to recognise 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. 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. In his introduction to the book Murakami describes his motivations for writing it: The translation of Underground was performed by Alfred Birnbaum, with that of The Place That Was Promised being done by Philip Gabriel. The English translation combines both books into a single volume, but has been abridged to achieve this. Underground was originally published in Japan (in Japanese) without the interviews of Aum members - they were published in the magazine Bungei Shunju before being collected in a separate volume, The Place That Was Promised.
Described as a work of "journalistic literature," it collects a series of separate interviews Murakami conducted with 60 victims of the attacks and 8 members of Aum, descriptions of how the attacks were carried out, and his essay "Blind Nightmare: Where are we Japanese going?" Underground ( アンダーグラウンド, Andāguraundo ?, 1997- 1998) is a book by Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami about the 1995 Aum Shinrikyo sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway. Kodansha, Bungeishunjusha (Japan) / Harvill (UK) / Vintage (US) Related subjects: General Literature Underground
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