Voices of (Mis)Trust: Unreliable Narration in the Works of Kazuo Ishiguro and Haruki Murakami
Voices of (Mis)Trust: Unreliable Narration in the Works of Kazuo Ishiguro and Haruki Murakami

Summary/Abstract: This paper examines the role of unreliable narrators in the works of Kazuo Ishiguro and Haruki Murakami, exploring how narrative unreliability shapes readers’ engagement and reflects psychological and existential dimensions. Ishiguro’s narrators often exhibit self-deception and emotional complexity, grappling with memory, identity, and moral responsibility within grounded realities. Murakami’s narrators, by contrast, navigate surreal, fragmented worlds, their unreliability arising from introspection, detachment, and partial comprehension of the fantastical. By comparing these narrative strategies, the study highlights the diverse ways unreliability interrogates truth, perception, and human limitations, revealing the authors’ distinct approaches to postmodern skepticism and the interplay between narrative authority and reader interpretation.

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