Haruki Murakami
In 1978, Haruki Murakami was twenty-nine 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, that turned Murakami from a writer into a phenomenon.
Murakami's distinctive blend of the mysterious and the everyday, of melancholy and humour, continues to enchant readers, ensuring his place as one of the world's most acclaimed and well-loved writers.
Birthday Stories
What will you get for your birthday this year? A chance to see into the future? Or a reminder of the imperfect past?In this enviable gathering, Haruki Murakami has chosen for his party some of the very best short story writers of recent years, each with their own birthday experiences, each story a snapshot of life on a single day. Including stories by Russell Banks, Ethan Canin, Raymond Carver, David Foster Wallace, Denis Johnson, Claire Keegan, Andrea Lee, Daniel Lyons, Lewis Robinson, Lynda Sexson, Paul Theroux, William Trevor and Haruki Murakami, this anthology captures a range of emotions evoked by advancing age and the passing of time, from events fondly recalled to the impact of appalling tragedy.Previously published in a Japanese translation by Haruki Murakami, this English edition contains a specially written introduction.
R 275.00
Dance Dance Dance
An assault on the senses, part murder mystery, part metaphysical speculation; a fable for our times as catchy as a rock song blasting from the window of a sports car.High-class call girls billed to Mastercard. A psychic 13-year-old dropout with a passion for Talking Heads. A hunky matinee idol doomed to play dentists and teachers. A one-armed beach-combing poet, an uptight hotel clerk and one very bemused narrator caught in the web of advanced capitalist mayhem.Combine this offbeat cast of characters with Murakami's idiosyncratic prose and out comes Dance Dance Dance.'If Raymond Chandler had lived long enough to see Blade Runner, he might have written something like Dance Dance Dance' Observer
R 275.00
Elephant Vanishes
A dizzying short story collection that displays Murakami's genius for uncovering the surreal in the everyday, the extraordinary within the ordinary*Featuring the story ‘Barn Burning’, the inspiration behind the Palme d’Or nominated film Burning*When a man's favourite elephant vanishes, the balance of his whole life is subtly upset. A couple's midnight hunger pangs drive them to hold up a McDonald's. A woman finds she is irresistible to a small green monster that burrows through her front garden. An insomniac wife wakes up in a twilight world of semi-consciousness in which anything seems possible - even death. In every one of these stories Murakami makes a determined assault on the normal.
R 275.00
South of the Border, West of the Sun
A moving, thoughtful story of long-lost love and second chancesGrowing up in the suburbs in post-war Japan, it seemed to Hajime that everyone but him had brothers and sisters. His sole companion was Shimamoto, also an only child. Together they spent long afternoons listening to her father's record collection. But when his family moved away, the two lost touch. Now Hajime is in his thirties. After a decade of drifting, he has found happiness with his loving wife and two daughters, and success running a jazz bar. Then Shimamoto reappears. She is beautiful, intense, enveloped in mystery. Hajime is catapulted into the past, putting at risk all he has in the present.'Casablanca remade Japanese style...It is dream-like writing, laden with scenes which have the radiance of a poem' The Times
R 275.00
Sputnik Sweetheart
A mystery story about love, the cosmos and other fictional universes.Sumire is in love with a woman seventeen years her senior. Miu is glamorous and successful. Sumire is an aspiring writer who dresses in an oversized second-hand coat and heavy boots like a character in a Kerouac novel. Sumire spends hours on the phone talking to her best friend K about the big questions in life: what is sexual desire, and should she ever tell Miu how she feels for her? Meanwhile K wonders whether he should confess his own unrequited love for Sumire. Then, a desperate Miu calls from a small Greek island: Sumire has mysteriously vanished...'Confirms Murakami as a master of his craft... Out of this world' Time Out
R 280.00
Kafka on the Shore
Kafka Tamura runs away from home at fifteen, under the shadow of his father's dark prophesy.The aging Nakata, tracker of lost cats, who never recovered from a bizarre childhood affliction, finds his pleasantly simplified life suddenly turned upside down.As their parallel odysseys unravel, cats converse with people; fish tumble from the sky; a ghost-like pimp deploys a Hegel-spouting girl of the night; a forest harbours soldiers apparently un-aged since World War II. There is a savage killing, but the identity of both victim and killer is a riddle - one of many which combine to create an elegant and dreamlike masterpiece.*Murakami's new book Novelist as a Vocation is available now*'Wonderful... Magical and outlandish' Daily Mail'Hypnotic, spellbinding' The Times'Cool, fluent and addictive' Daily Telegraph
R 280.00
Wild Sheep Chase
A marvelous hybrid of mythology and mystery, A Wild Sheep Chase is the extraordinary literary thriller that launched Haruki Murakami’s international reputation.It begins simply enough: A twenty-something advertising executive receives a postcard from a friend, and casually appropriates the image for an insurance company’s advertisement. What he doesn’t realise is that included in the pastoral scene is a mutant sheep with a star on its back, and in using this photo he has unwittingly captured the attention of a man in black who offers a menacing ultimatum: find the sheep or face dire consequences. Thus begins a surreal and elaborate quest that takes our hero from the urban haunts of Tokyo to the remote and snowy mountains of northern Japan, where he confronts not only the mythological sheep, but the confines of tradition and the demons deep within himself. Quirky and utterly captivating, A Wild Sheep Chase is Murakami at his astounding best.'A Wild Sheep Chase has the conventional hull of a thriller - a quest, a mystery, an extraordinary woman, and plenty of elegant duress - but its fantastic superstructure transforms it into something quite different...a science fiction fantasy, a romance, a metaphysical tease, or a dramatisation of philosophical ideas' Independent
R 280.00
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
A narrative particle accelerator that zooms between Wild Turkey Whiskey and Bob Dylan, unicorn skulls and voracious librarians, John Coltrane and Lord Jim. Science fiction, detective story and post-modern manifesto all rolled into one rip-roaring novel, Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World is the tour de force that expanded Haruki Murakami's international following. Tracking one man's descent into the Kafkaesque underworld of contemporary Tokyo, Murakami unites East and West, tragedy and farce, compassion and detachment, slang and philosophy.
R 280.00
Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Toru Okada's cat has disappeared.His wife is growing more distant every day.Then there are the increasingly explicit telephone calls he has recently been receiving.As this compelling story unfolds, the tidy suburban realities of Okada's vague and blameless life, spent cooking, reading, listening to jazz and opera and drinking beer at the kitchen table, are turned inside out, and he embarks on a bizarre journey, guided (however obscurely) by a succession of characters, each with a tale to tell.*Murakami's new book Novelist as a Vocation is available now*'Visionary...a bold and generous book' New York Times'Murakami weaves textured layers of reality into a shot-silk garment of deceptive beauty' Independent on Sunday'Deeply philosophical and teasingly perplexing, it is impossible to put down' Daily Telegraph'Mesmerising, surreal, this really is the work of a true original' The Times
R 295.00
Norwegian Wood
When he hears her favourite Beatles song, Toru Watanabe recalls his first love Naoko, the girlfriend of his best friend Kizuki. Immediately he is transported back almost twenty years to his student days in Tokyo, adrift in a world of uneasy friendships, casual sex, passion, loss and desire - to a time when an impetuous young woman called Midori marches into his life and he has to choose between the future and the past.
R 275.00
After Dark
Reality bends all the more acutely with lack of sleep in this stunning novel from the master of the surreal.Eyes mark the shape of the city The midnight hour approaches in an almost-empty diner. Mari sips her coffee and reads a book, but soon her solitude is disturbed: a girl has been beaten up at the Alphaville hotel, and needs Mari's help. Meanwhile Mari's beautiful sister Eri lies in a deep, heavy sleep that is 'too perfect, too pure' to be normal; it has lasted for two months. But tonight as the digital clock displays 00:00, a hint of life flickers across the television screen in her room, even though it's plug has been pulled out. Strange nocturnal happenings, or a trick of the night?'A captivating mood piece, delicate and wistful' Evening Standard
R 270.00
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
An eclectic, eccentric and altogether brain-bending collection of short stories.Here are animated crows, a criminal monkey, an ice man, as well as the dreams that shape us and the things we wish for. Whether during a chance reunion in Italy, a romantic exile in Greece, a holiday in Hawaii or in the grip of everyday life, Murakami's characters confront loss, or sexuality, or the glow of a firefly, or the impossible distance between those who ought to be closest of all.'An intimate pleasure' The Times
R 275.00
Norwegian Wood
'A masterly novel' New York Times'Such is the exquisite, gossamer construction of Murakami's writing that everything he chooses to describe trembles with symbolic possibility' GuardianRead the haunting love story that turned Murakami into a literary superstar.When he hears her favourite Beatles song, Toru Watanabe recalls his first love Naoko, the girlfriend of his best friend Kizuki. Immediately he is transported back almost twenty years to his student days in Tokyo, adrift in a world of uneasy friendships, casual sex, passion, loss and desire - to a time when an impetuous young woman called Midori marches into his life and he has to choose between the future and the past.*Murakami's new book Novelist as a Vocation is available now*'Evocative, entertaining, sexy and funny; but then Murakami is one of the best writers around' Time Out'Poignant, romantic and hopeless, it beautifully encapsulates the heartbreak and loss of faith' Sunday Times'This book is undeniably hip, full of student uprisings, free love, booze and 1960s pop, it's also genuinely emotionally engaging, and describes the highs of adolescence as well as the lows' Independent on Sunday
R 280.00
Wind/ Pinball
Discover Haruki Murakami's first two novels.'If you're the sort of guy who raids the refrigerators of silent kitchens at three o'clock in the morning, you can only write accordingly. That's who I am.' Hear the Wind Sing and Pinball, 1973 are Haruki Murakami's earliest novels. They follow the fortunes of the narrator and his friend, known only by his nickname, the Rat. In Hear the Wind Sing the narrator is home from college on his summer break. He spends his time drinking beer and smoking in J's Bar with the Rat, listening to the radio, thinking about writing and the women he has slept with, and pursuing a relationship with a girl with nine fingers. Three years later, in Pinball, 1973, he has moved to Tokyo to work as a translator and live with indistinguishable twin girls, but the Rat has remained behind, despite his efforts to leave both the town and his girlfriend. The narrator finds himself haunted by memories of his own doomed relationship but also, more bizarrely, by his short-lived obsession with playing pinball in J's Bar. This sends him on a quest to find the exact model of pinball machine he had enjoyed playing years earlier: the three-flipper Spaceship.
R 302.00
Pinball
Pinball, 1973 is Murakami's second novel, available for the first time in English outside Japan. With a new introduction by the author.Pinball, 1973 picks up three years after the events of Murakami's debut novel, Hear the Wind Sing. The narrator has moved to Tokyo to work as a translator and live with indistinguishable twin girls, but the Rat has remained behind, despite his efforts to leave both the town and his girlfriend. The narrator finds himself haunted by memories of his own doomed relationship but also, more bizarrely, by his short-lived obsession with playing pinball in J's Bar. This sends him on a quest to find the exact model of pinball machine he had enjoyed playing years earlier: the three-flipper Spaceship.
Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
A special hardback edition of Murakami's epic, magical masterpiece, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, now with a new introduction from the authorToru Okada's cat has disappeared.His wife is growing more distant every day.Then there are the increasingly explicit telephone calls he has recently been receiving.As this compelling story unfolds, the tidy suburban realities of Okada's vague and blameless life, spent cooking, reading, listening to jazz and opera and drinking beer at the kitchen table, are turned inside out, and he embarks on a bizarre journey, guided (however obscurely) by a succession of characters, each with a tale to tell.'Visionary...a bold and generous book' New York Times'Mesmerising, surreal, this really is the work of a true original' The Times
R 250.00
Kafka on the Shore
A beautifully packaged hardback edition of Haruki Murakami's mesmerizingly surreal classic, now with a new introduction by the authorKafka Tamura runs away from home at fifteen, under the shadow of his father's dark prophesy.The aging Nakata, tracker of lost cats, who never recovered from a bizarre childhood affliction, finds his pleasantly simplified life suddenly turned upside down.As their parallel odysseys unravel, cats converse with people; fish tumble from the sky; a ghost-like pimp deploys a Hegel-spouting girl of the night; a forest harbours soldiers apparently un-aged since World War II. There is a savage killing, but the identity of both victim and killer is a riddle - one of many which combine to create an elegant and dreamlike masterpiece.'Wonderful... Magical and outlandish' Daily Mail'Hypnotic, spellbinding' The Times'Cool, fluent and addictive' Daily Telegraph
R 530.00
Norwegian Wood
A beautifully packaged hardback edition of Haruki Murakami's breakout hit, now with a new introduction by the authorWhen he hears her favourite Beatles song, Toru Watanabe recalls his first love Naoko, the girlfriend of his best friend Kizuki. Immediately he is transported back almost twenty years to his student days in Tokyo, adrift in a world of uneasy friendships, casual sex, passion, loss and desire - to a time when an impetuous young woman called Midori marches into his life and he has to choose between the future and the past.'Evocative, entertaining, sexy and funny; but then Murakami is one of the best writers around' Time Out
R 475.00
Desire
You’ve just passed someone on the street who could be the love of your life, the person you’re destined for – what do you do? In Murakami’s world, you tell them a story. The five weird and wonderful tales collected here each unlock the many-tongued language of desire, whether it takes the form of hunger, lust, sudden infatuation or the secret longings of the heart.Selected from Haruki’s Murakami’s short story collections The Elephant Vanishes, Blind Willow Sleeping Woman, Men Without WomenVINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS.A series of short books by the world’s greatest writers on the experiences that make us human Also in the Vintage Minis series: Love by Jeanette WintersonPsychedelics by Aldous HuxleyEating by Nigella LawsonSummer by Laurie Lee
R 165.00
Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
A mesmerising mystery story about friendship from the internationally bestselling author of Norwegian Wood and 1Q84Tsukuru Tazaki had four best friends at school. By chance all of their names contained a colour. The two boys were called Akamatsu, meaning ‘red pine’, and Oumi, ‘blue sea’, while the girls’ names were Shirane, ‘white root’, and Kurono, ‘black field’. Tazaki was the only last name with no colour in it.One day Tsukuru Tazaki’s friends announced that they didn't want to see him, or talk to him, ever again.Since that day Tsukuru has been floating through life, unable to form intimate connections with anyone. But then he meets Sara, who tells him that the time has come to find out what happened all those years ago.
R 280.00
First Person Singular
A mindbending new collection of short stories from the unique, internationally acclaimed author of Norwegian Wood and The Wind-up Bird Chronicle.THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERThe eight masterly stories in this new collection are all told in the first person by a classic Murakami narrator. From nostalgic memories of youth, meditations on music and an ardent love of baseball to dreamlike scenarios, an encounter with a talking monkey and invented jazz albums, together these stories challenge the boundaries between our minds and the exterior world. Occasionally, a narrator who may or may not be Murakami himself is present. Is it memoir or fiction? The reader decides.Philosophical and mysterious, the stories in First Person Singular all touch beautifully on love and solitude, childhood and memory. . . all with a signature Murakami twist.A GUARDIAN AND SUNDAY TIMES 'BOOKS OF 2021' PICK
R 280.00
Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (Vintage Classics Japanese Series)
Enter the surreal and enchanting world of Haruki Murakami. Toru Okada's cat has disappeared. His wife is growing more distant every day. Then there are the increasingly explicit telephone calls he has recently been receiving. As this compelling story unfolds, the tidy suburban realities of Okada's vague and blameless life, spent cooking, reading, listening to jazz and opera and drinking beer at the kitchen table, are turned inside out. He embarks on a bizarre journey, guided by a succession of characters, each with a tale to tell. 'Mesmerising, surreal, this really is the work of a true original' The Times VINTAGE JAPANESE CLASSICS series - five masterpieces of Japanese fiction in gorgeous new gift editions.
R 355.00
After the Quake
Tales of upheaval and confusion, longing and love in the aftermath of the Kobe earthquake.For the characters in after the quake, the Kobe earthquake is an echo from a past they buried long ago. Satsuki has spent thirty years hating one man: did her desire for revenge cause the earthquake? Miyake left his family in Kobe to make midnight bonfires on a beach hundreds of miles away.Fourteen-year-old Sala has nightmares that the Earthquake Man is trying to stuff her inside a little box. Katagiri returns home to find a giant frog in his apartment on a mission to save Tokyo from a massive burrowing worm. 'When he gets angry, he causes earthquakes,' says Frog. 'And right now he is very, very angry.'In a dance with the delights of Murakami's imagination we experience the limitless possibilities of fiction. With these stories Murakami expands our hearts and minds yet again' The Times
R 275.00
Men Without Women
DISCOVER THE SHORT STORY COLLECTION THAT GAVE THE WORLD DRIVE MY CAR, THE BAFTA AND OSCAR WINNING FILMA dazzling Sunday Times bestselling collection of short stories from the beloved internationally acclaimed Haruki Murakami. Across seven tales, Haruki Murakami brings his powers of observation to bear on the lives of men who, in their own ways, find themselves alone. Here are vanishing cats and smoky bars, lonely hearts and mysterious women, baseball and the Beatles, woven together to tell stories that speak to us all. Marked by the same wry humour that has defined his entire body of work, in this collection Murakami has crafted another contemporary classic. 'Supremely enjoyable, philosophical and pitch-perfect new collection of short stories...Murakami has a marvelous understanding of youth and age' Observer 'Murakami at his whimsical, romantic best' Financial Times
R 280.00
Wild Sheep Chase
Haruki Murakami's third novel, A Wild Sheep Chase is the mystery hybrid which completes the odyssey begun in Hear the Wind Sing and Pinball, 1973.The man was leading an aimless life, time passing, one big blank. His girlfriend has perfectly formed ears, ears with the power to bewitch, marvels of creation. The man receives a letter from a friend, enclosing a seemingly innocent photograph of sheep, and a request: place the photograph somewhere it will be seen. Then, one September afternoon, the phone rings, and the adventure begins. Welcome to the wild sheep chase.'Mr. Murakami's style and imagination are closer to that of Kurt Vonnegut, Raymond Carver and John Irving' New York Times
R 275.00
Killing Commendatore
We all live our lives carrying secrets we cannot disclose. 'Beguiling... Murakami is brilliant at folding the humdrum alongside the supernatural; finding the magic that's nested in life's quotidian details' GuardianWhen a thirty-something portrait painter is abandoned by his wife, he holes up in the mountain home of a famous artist. The days drift by, spent painting, listening to music and drinking whiskey in the evenings. But then he discovers a strange painting in the attic and unintentionally begins a strange journey of self-discovery that involves a mysterious ringing bell, a precocious thirteen-year-old girl, a Nazi assassination attempt and a haunted underworld.A stunning work of imagination, Killing Commendatore is a surreal tale of love and loneliness, war and art.
R 295.00
