Japan toasts 'Drive My Car' Oscar win, hopes it will raise novelist Murakami's profile

In the 'Drive My Car' short story from Haruki Murakami’s bestselling collection, 'Men Without Women', a widowed actor hires a young woman to be his chauffeur. Despite her reserved nature, the actor finds comfort in her stable presence, and a friendship blossoms as they slowly reveal their pasts. Photo: AP

From Tokyo streets to the highest levels of government, Japan recently cheered the Oscar win of Drive My Car amid hopes it will raise the profile of Haruki Murakami, the perennial Nobel prize hopeful who penned the story on which the film was based.

The three-hour drama, the story of a widowed theatre actor grappling with his past, was directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi and based on a short story by Murakami, the international bestselling author whose name has arisen annually for more than a decade as a potential Nobel Literature Prize winner.