Murakami spoke Sunday in Odense, Denmark, the birthplace of the 19th century fairy tale writer. His speech titled "The Meaning of Shadows" cited Andersen's dark fantasy, "The Shadow."

Murakami said: "No matter how high a wall we build to keep intruders out, no matter how strictly we exclude outsiders, no matter how much we rewrite history to suit us, we just end up damaging and hurting ourselves."

His speech was somewhat abstract, but Japanese media have interpreted the wall and intruders as references to refugees arriving in Europe and the protectionist response.