Haruki Murakami’s Men Without Women is a short story collection comprised of seven stories. The collection draws themes and its title from Ernest Hemingway’s own short story collection of the same name. In both works, the authors explore the relationships between men and women, focusing on how men confront and process the loss of women in their lives. Written almost a century apart, these works are in communication with each other: “A quiet panic afflicts the male characters in Hemingway’s 1927 collection Men Without Women […] Ninety years later, Haruki Murakami’s men without women have come to the same conclusion, polishing it into a postmodern lifestyle” (Harrison, M John. “Men Without Women by Haruki Murakami Review—A Quiet Panic.“ The Guardian, 5 May 2017). Murakami’s stories take a similar approach to Hemingway’s in their exploration of what it means for a man to lose a woman, either through tragedy, infidelity, or simple heartbreak. The primary difference, however, is that Murakami applies such themes to present-day Japan, offering a fresh viewpoint of how men have changed over time.

Known for his succinct language and sparse prose, Hemingway’s writing often invites readers to read between the lines to infer emotional dynamics between characters. Murakami emulates this sparse style, particularly in the titular story of the collection, “Men Without Women.” In this story, the narrator receives a phone call in the middle of the night and learns that a former girlfriend of his died. In the aftermath, he realizes that he joins the men without women: “By the end of the title story, its narrator has concluded, in appropriately Hemingwayesque fashion, that when you lose one woman, you lose them all: you become, somehow, the representative of the category ‘men without women’, alone but not singular” (Harrison). The story itself is the shortest of the collection, happening over the course of a few moments in one night. Like Hemingway’s characters, the narrator works through absolutes, believing that the loss of the first woman he loved distances him from other women forever. Across both works, men work to process their emotions and understand the relationships they have with women.