Haruki Murakami 村上 春樹

A world without walls can be created “in the quiet but sustained effort to keep on singing, to keep on telling stories, stories about a better and freer world to come, without losing heart,” he said.

“We can see [a world without walls] with our own eyes – we can even touch it with our own hands if we try hard.

“I’d like to send this message to the young people in Hong Kong who are struggling against their wall right now at this moment.”

(Murakami is the first Japanese author awarded the Welt Literature Prize by German daily newspaper Die Welt since the 10,000-euro prize was established in 1999.)