Joni Waka, art dealer, collector and cultural manager, claims to be a character from a novel by Haruki Murakami.Gonzalo Robledo
When Western scholars of Haruki Murakami arrive in Tokyo to delve into the universe of the most widely read Japanese author in history, sooner or later they come across a Japanese nationalized Sephardic Jew who boasts of being Johnnie Walker, the executioner of the cats in the novel
Kafka on the shore
(2002).
In Tokyo cultural circles he is known as Joni Waka, an art dealer, collector and cultural manager, “able to speak 11 languages and swear very well in eight″.
He declares himself gay, "addicted to design" and runs a non-profit foundation called The ART Foundation that sponsors artists, organizes exhibitions and has awarded prizes to local personalities such as Kengo Kuma (the architect of the National Stadium for the Tokyo Olympics). 2020) or the artistic collective Chim↑Pom.
In the film
Map of the sounds of Tokyo
, by the Spanish Isabel Coixet, Waka appears as one of the guests who in the opening sequence eats sushi on top of a naked woman.
More information
Murakami's Tokyo: walks through places from his novels
Waka says that he met the author of
Kafka on the shore
in January 1997, at the luxurious Strand hotel in Rangoon (Myanmar), at the wedding party of a Burmese writer with a mutual friend, Alfred Birnbaum, considered the translator who launched Murakami's work to the US and world publishing market.
When
Kafka appeared on the shore
, Waka recognized himself as Johnnie Walker, despite the fact that he is portrayed as a sinister cat killer dressed in the character's red tailcoat, white trousers and black boots that adorn the label of the famous Scotch whisky.
The fact that Johnnie Walker kills cats to eat their hearts is a joke between friends, Waka says, explaining that it is a mockery of his “bloody
kosher
diet ”.
Like Waka, Murakami's character is a foreigner who can speak Japanese and is accompanied by a dog whose size is intimidating.
Every day, the real Waka visits galleries and exclusive design shops aboard an always brand new Mercedes Benz, since, he explains, the German house renews it every six months for advertising purposes.
In return, he puts on a little
performance
every time he opens the back door of the car for
Bogie
, a huge Rhodesian Ridgeback famous for the stripe on his spine, to get out.
Haruki Murakami, photographed in Barcelona when he won the Premi Internacional Catalunya 2011.JORDI BEDMAR
He is 72 years old and his biography is an accumulation of disconcerting episodes that, he admits, have turned the strange into routine and make every day of his life look a lot like a page from Murakami.
The historical journey of his ancestors includes Egypt, Spain, Portugal, India, Burma and China.
Waka was born in San Francisco (United States) by accident, when his family was fleeing a communist persecution in Harbin (Manchuria).
They returned to Asia and the Japanese government welcomed them in Kobe, a prosperous Pacific port where they received Japanese passports and were forced to Japaneseize their names.
His father traded cotton, coal and grain, and Joni and his younger brother Niko were sent to study in other countries.
His Spanish ancestors go back to Pamplona and he explains that in the Tokyo synagogue his name is registered as Joaquim de Navarra.
His conversation in Spanish has a Mexican accent, since he studied psychology at the university in Mexico.
He has never visited Spain, although he says he would love to go one day.
He did not try to take advantage of the 2015 law to grant Spanish nationality to Sephardim, as compensation for the expulsion more than 500 years ago, because "it required too much paperwork," he confesses.
The real life
For Waka,
Kafka on the Shore
is one of Murakami's books whose plot is among the "easiest to follow and understand."
But he prefers crime novels like Natsuo Kirino's
Out
when it comes to real Japan and the harshness of life for the average Japanese.
His long residence in Japan has left him with a bittersweet feeling towards the country and he suggests that he could have been happier elsewhere: “I feel the same way a black man from a small town in Mississippi might feel who has been through everything.
He doesn't want to leave because he is the only thing he knows.
Japan is my home."
Alfred Birnbaum, who also speaks Spanish due to his stays in Mexico and Barcelona, clarifies that when
Kafka on the shore
was published in Japan, he was no longer Murakami's translator.
He remembers reading that work with diminished interest, as Murakami "was no longer a humorist."
Birnbaum translated the author's first seven books into English and claims that his translations were used, and continue to be used, for versions in languages such as Polish.
Translating Murakami, he continues, is not a particularly arduous task as he "isn't much of a stylist."
He is about a "screenwriter who creates unconnected manga episodes and his characters lack depth."
Murakami, contacted through his publisher, Shinchosha, declines to confirm whether Waka was the model for his character, which suggests that the Japanese author coincides with Mario Vargas Llosa when he received a call at his home in Lima from a character of his own. creation (Captain Pantaleón Pantoja): "I refused to see it, true to my belief that fictional characters should not interfere in real life."
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