When you start reading Murakami novels, life starts being like them. That’s their special magic. So said Guardian book club host John Mullan, introducing this month’s guest, the revered and multi-selling Japanese writer, at Edinburgh international book festival

Mullan told of having that very experience as he ordered a coffee on the train to Edinburgh. “You like Haruki Murakami!” exclaimed the waitress, noticing his copy of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. “So do I, what a coincidence!” You and 27 million other people, he was tempted to say – but instead he couldn’t help but mention that he would meet the author later the same day.

Rarely seen in public or in the media, Murakami was cheerful, relaxed and very funny as he answered all the questions in English (“I’ve lived in Hawaii for a while, so my English is different than yours”, he warned). However, a translator was on hand to help out – a woman who, he revealed, was once upon a time a waitress at a bar he and his wife Yoko ran in Tokyo.

The author of 13 novels and many short stories admitted to having completely forgotten what he has written – or indeed why – when asked about specific plot points, without seeming bothered at all. “Really?” and “I don’t remember that” were two of his most frequent answers, and he had the audience laughing at his frankness every time. “It was published 20 years ago and I haven’t read it since then!” he said of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, around which the event centred.

Here we offer you the main points of the session, in quotes, including his answers to some of your questions. NOTE: even if there was very limited time for the session and therefore for squeezing in as many of your questions as we would have liked, many of your queries were answered during the event anyway, so hopefully this summary will satisfy a good amount of your curiosities.

1. “I feel uncomfortable writing in the third person: it’s like looking down on your characters”

I wrote my first novel in 1979. Since then, I’ve written every novel in the first person. I tried a couple of times to do the third person (it took me 20 years: the first was Kafka on the Shore) – and every time, I feel uncomfortable, like I’m looking down from above. I wanted to stand at the same level as my characters. It’s democratic!

2. “When I was younger, I wanted to be a quiet person and live a quiet life”

Toru Okada [the protagonist of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle] is my hero. When I was younger I wanted to be like him. I just wanted to be a quiet person and live a quiet life. It’s not so quiet anymore! Life is strange.

3. “I love ironing. And I do my wife’s too!”

Murakami explained that a lot of the recurring themes in his books are from his own life – his cats, his cooking, his music and his obsessions. Continuing with his writing process, here’s his comment on why he creates many different storylines in one book:

When I write a novel, it takes one or two years – and I write day after day … I get tired! I have to open up the window to get fresh air. I write another line of the story to get entertained – I hope the readers will be entertained as well! Also, I write in the first person, so I need something else [to develop these storylines]: letters, or somebody’s story.

4. “I don’t like writing about violence and sex abuse – but I have to for the story’s sake”

Some of his stories are about terrible things – he talked about a couple of horribly gripping moments in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle:

I was so scared when I was writing it! All the translators complained to me, saying it was scary. But writing it was much scarier! / I have to do that. The violence and sex abuse are a kind of stimulation for the story. I don’t like to write them but I have to for the story’s sake.

5. “My lifetime dream is to be sitting at the bottom of a well“

It’s my lifetime dream to be sitting at the bottom of a well. It’s a dream come true. [Not a nightmare? asks John Mullan. “No!” “Why not?” “I dont know.”] I thought: it’s fun to write a novel, you can be anything! So I thought: I can sit at the bottom of a well, isolated … Wonderful!

6. About translations of his books: “You can relax!”

Many readers asked about translation and his involvement in the English translations of his books. Beaslie asked:

Given much of his storytelling relies on nuance and subtlety, I’d like to know what he thinks readers who experience his novels in translation lose by not reading in the original Japanese language.

I can read the books in English. Not in French, Russian, German or others. But when an English translation is complete, they send me the manuscript. When I read it, it’s fine for me! I don’t know what’s going to happen next! My point is that if I enjoyed it, the translation is good. So you can relax! . Sometimes I find mistakes and I call the translator. But three or four things in a book, maybe.

7. “When writing (as well as every day), I don’t have any idea at all of what is to come”

Several readers wanted to know about his writing process. EdwardLlewellyn asked:

Is each book you write fully formed in your mind before you start to write or is it a journey for you as the writer as it is for us as readers?

I don’t have any idea at all, when I start writing, of what is to come. For instance, for The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, the first thing I had was the call of the bird, because I heard a bird in my back yard (it was the first time I heard that kind of sound and I never have since then. I felt like it was predicting something. So I wanted to write about it). The next thing was cooking spaghetti – these are things that happen to me! I was cooking spaghetti, and somebody call. So I had just these two things at the start. Two years I kept on writing. It’s fun! I don’t know what’s going to happen next, every day. I get up, go to the desk, switch on the computer, etc. and say to myself: “so what’s going to happen today?”It’s fun!

8. “My imagination is a kind of animal. So what I do is keep it alive”

I’m obsessed with the well. And the elephant. The refrigerator. The cat. And the ironing. I can’t explain it.

9. “My life is full of strange coincidences”

Mullan asked why he was so keen on using coincidence in his novels, when so many writers tried to avoid them because they often seemed unlikely to readers.

Dickens’s books are full of coincidences; so are Raymond Chandler’s: Philip Marlowe encounters numerous dead bodies in the City of Angels. It’s unrealistic – even in LA! But nobody complains about it, as without it, how could the story happen? That’s my point. / And so many coincidences happen in my real life. Many strange coincidences have happened in many junctures in my life.

10. What is good about being a novelist? “No commuting, no meetings, no boss.”

No need to add anything, as he didn’t either. This was a question from a member of the audience.

11. “When writing fiction, I need music”

An audience member asked how he chooses the music he includes in his novels – does he set out to have a soundtrack? Many of our readers asked questions along similar lines. Here’s what he said:

It comes naturally. When writing fiction, I need something musical, and the songs come automatically to me. I have learned so many things from music – harmony, rhythm, improvisation. Rhythm is important to me – you need it to get the readers to keep writing. Usually I listen to music when I’m writing, and that’s where the songs in the books tend to come from.

12. “I have no intention to write about sad characters”

An audience member asked why so many of his characters seem so sad. “Really?”, he asked, astounded. Toru Okada is certainly sad about his marriage, offered Mullan. “Everybody is!”, joked (we think) Murakami. “I have no intention to write about sad characters”, he concluded.