In this novel-length road story, the female protagonist, who is haunted by an audio hallucination –‘twenty ells of linen are worth a coat’ – that plays over and over in her mind, escapes from a mental hospital with a young man. This is the story of their journey together.The hallucinatory words come from a passage in Marx's Das Kapital, but the protagonist knows nothing of that; nor does she understand what they literally mean. After she starts to hear them, she attempts suicide an...

The unsettling story of a young man who suffers an identity crisis after getting tangled up in a telephone scam."A Kafkaesque journey of a lonely narrator being absorbed by an impersonal system." — Los Angeles Review of BooksThis novel centers on the "It's me" telephone scam—often targeting the elderly—that has escalated in Japan in recent years. Typically, the caller identifies himself only by saying, "Hey, it's me," and goes on to claim ...

In this novel-length road story, the female protagonist, who is haunted by an audio hallucination –‘twenty ells of linen are worth a coat’ – that plays over and over in her mind, escapes from a mental hospital with a young man. This is the story of their journey together.The hallucinatory words come from a passage in Marx's Das Kapital, but the protagonist knows nothing of that; nor does she understand what they literally mean. After she starts to hear them, she attempts suicide an...

In this novel-length road story, the female protagonist, who is haunted by an audio hallucination –‘twenty ells of linen are worth a coat’ – that plays over and over in her mind, escapes from a mental hospital with a young man. This is the story of their journey together.The hallucinatory words come from a passage in Marx's Das Kapital, but the protagonist knows nothing of that; nor does she understand what they literally mean. After she starts to hear them, she attempts suicide an...

An ambitious, epic dystopian novel - part political thriller and part satire. From the Fatherland, with Love is set in an alternative, dystopian present in which the dollar has collapsed and Japan's economy has fallen along with it. The North Korean government, sensing an opportunity, sends a fleet of rebels in the first land invasion that Japan has ever faced. Japan can't cope with the surprise onslaught of Operation From the Fatherland, with Love. But the terrorist Ishihara and his band ...

Winner, 2025-2026 Lindsley and Masao Miyoshi Translation Prize, Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture at Columbia UniversityIn the late fifteenth century, a young Dominican friar sets out on a journey from Paris to Florence in search of manuscripts of pre-Christian philosophy. Along the way, he encounters an ascetic alchemist in a small village. As the young man falls under the spell of the alchemist’s quest for enlightenment, a series of disasters—culminating in...

This novel centers on the “It’s me” telephone scam—often targeting the elderly—that has escalated in Japan in recent years. Typically, the caller identifies himself only by saying, “Hey, it’s me,” and goes on to claim in great distress that he’s been in an accident or lost some money with which he was entrusted at work, etc., and needs funds wired to his account right away.ME’s narrator is a nondescript young Tokyoite named Hitoshi Nagano who, on a whim, takes home a cell ...

'A cyberpunk coming-of-age tale' Japan TimesTwo babies are left in a Tokyo station coin locker and survive against the odds, but their lives are forever tainted by this inauspicious start.Raised amidst the outcasts and misfits of Toxitown, they carve out vastly different paths: one as a bisexual rock star on a desperate search for his mother, the other as an athlete consumed by revenge against the woman who left him behind.When their twiste...

Murakami's 69, a side-splittingly funny coming-of-age novel set in the Japan of the sixties In a small, inconsequential city in Japan, all that matters to 17-year-old Kensuke Yazaki and his friends is girls, rock music and, to a much lesser extent, school. Told at high speed and with irresistible humour by Kensuke himself, this is the story of their 1969, as they engage in heated conversations about Marxism, Rimbaud, Godard, the Beatles and the Stones, set up a barricade in their school, o...

A darkly satirical tale of the generation and gender gaps in Japanese society, Ruy Murakami's Popular Hits of the Showa Era is a literary karaoke act combining manga and street culture It's a set-up like a video game: two rival gangs fight to death for the control of a Tokyo district. In one gang, six young losers committed only to drinking, voyeurism and karaoke singing, in the other six tough independent older women. From ambush to revenge, both groups are gradually decimated until the u...

The long-awaited translation of the novel behind the cult classic Japanese movie.In this gloriously over-the-top tale, Aoyama, a widower who has lived alone with his son ever since his wife died seven years before, finally decides it is time to remarry. Since Aoyama is a bit rusty when it comes to dating, a filmmaker friend proposes that, in order to attract the perfect wife, they do a casting call for a movie they don't intend to produce. As the résumés pile up, o...

INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • One of the most revered voices in literature today gives us a story of love, friendship, and heartbreak for the ages.“Mesmerizing, immersive, hallucinogenic.”—Entertainment WeeklyColorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage is the remarkable story of a young man haunted by a great loss; of dreams and nightmares that have unintended consequences for the world around us...