A mesmerising mystery story about friendship from the internationally bestselling author of Norwegian Wood
In 1978, Haruki Murakami was 29 and running a jazz bar in downtown
Tokyo. One April day, the impulse to write a novel came to him
suddenly while watching a baseball game. That first novel, Hear the
Wind Sing, won a new writers' award and was published the following
year. More followed, including A Wild Sheep Chase and Hard-Boiled
Wonderland and the End of the World, but it was Norwegian Wood,
published in 1987, which turned Murakami from a writer into a
phenomenon. His books became bestsellers, were translated into many
languages, including English, and the door was thrown wide open to
Murakami's unique and addictive fictional universe.
Murakami writes with admirable discipline, producing ten pages a
day, after which he runs ten kilometres (he began long-distance
running in 1982 and has participated in numerous marathons and
races), works on translations, and then reads, listens to records
and cooks. His passions colour his non-fiction output, from What I
Talk About When I Talk About Running to Absolutely On Music, and
they also seep into his novels and short stories, providing
quotidian moments in his otherwise freewheeling flights of
imaginative inquiry. In works such as The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle,
1Q84 and Men Without Women, his distinctive blend of the mysterious
and the everyday, of melancholy and humour, continues to enchant
readers, ensuring Murakami's place as one of the world's most
acclaimed and well-loved writers.
A naturalistic coming-of-age story… sprinkled with strange images
and written in a hauntingly mournful key
*Guardian*
[Murakmi’s] elegant, frugal prose creates a tale of courage and
hope as Tsukuru tries to unlock the secrets of his past
*Stylist*
Critics have variously likened Murakami to Raymond Carver, Raymond
Chandler, Arthur C Clarke, Don DeLillo, Philip K Dick, Bret Easton
Ellis and Thomas Pynchon – a roster so ill-assorted to suggest he
is in fact an original
*New York Times*
A rich and even brilliant piece of work… Genuinely resonant and
satisfying
*Spectator*
This is a book for both the new and experienced reader....[it]
reveals another side of Murakami, one not so easy to pin down.
Incurably restive, ambiguous and valiantly struggling toward a new
level of maturation
*New York Times*
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