NEW YORK — Haruki Murakami was in town last week to hear his words set to music and his praises literally sung.

The 76-year-old Tokyo resident and perennial Nobel Prize candidate received a pair of honors in Manhattan for his long career as a storyteller, translator, critic and essayist. On Tuesday night, the Center for Fiction presented him its Lifetime of Excellence in Fiction Award, previously given to Nobel laureates Toni Morrison and Kazuo Ishiguro among others. Two days later, the Japan Society co-hosted a jazzy tribute at The Town Hall, “Murakami Mixtape,” and awarded him its annual prize for “luminous individuals (including Yoko Ono and Caroline Kennedy ) who have brought the U.S. and Japan closer together.”

Murakami fans know him for such novels as “Kafka on the Shore” and “The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle,” and for his themes of identity, isolation and memory. But they also pick up on his non-literary passions, from beer and baseball to running and jazz. Praising him requires more work than it does for your average high-achieving writer.

At the Center for Fiction gala, held at the downtown Cipriani 25 Broadway, longtime Murakami admirer Patti Smith introduced the author with the ballad “Wing” and its lofty refrain, “And if there’s one thing/I could do for you/You’d be a wing/In heaven blue.” She then shared memories of first learning about him, holding up an old copy of his debut novel, “Hear the Wind Sing,” and reading its opening sentence: “There’s no such thing as perfect writing, just like there’s no such thing as perfect despair.”

Smith said, “I was hooked, immediately.”