Yes, he was a very strong contender for the 2011 Nobel Prize for Literature. In the end he didn't win it - the prize was finally awarded to the Swedish poet Tomas Transnomer - but he was considered a very likely winner, in fact the day before the award was announced the bookies were giving him tsome of the best odds (though.he still wasn't the favourite.)

It's quite likely that Murakami will be nominated again, though, and he may well win the prize one day as he seems to be at the height of his literary career now. His most recent book was 1Q84, which is actually coming out in three volumes. It has been highly praised by a number of critics - it's about religious cults in Japan, in some ways similar to his earlier novel Underground.

He also published a short story in the same year, 'Town of Cats', so it looks as if his output is high right now and there may be plenty more to come.