Wind/Pinball - Hardcover

Murakami, Haruki

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 038568181X ISBN 13: 9780385681810

Publisher: Bond Street Books, 2015

Synopsis

Acclaimed, best-selling Haruki Murakami's debut short novels, newly re-translated and in one English-language volume for the first time--with a new introduction by the author.

     After almost thirty years out of print, the first major works of fiction by international best-selling author Haruki Murakami--the novellas Pinball, 1973 and Hear the Wind Sing--are finally together in one volume, in all-new English translations. Centering around two young men--an unnamed narrator and his friend and former roommate, the Rat--these short works are powerful, at times surreal, stories of loneliness, obsession, and eroticism. Filled with all the hallmarks of Murakami's later books, they are a fascinating insight into a great author's beginnings, and remarkable works of fiction in their own right. In addition to the new translations, our edition also includes an exclusive essay by Murakami in which he explores and explains his decision to become a writer. Prequels to the much-beloved classics A Wild Sheep Chase and Dance Dance Dance, these early novellas are essential reading for Murakami lovers and contemporary fiction lovers, alike.

About this title

About the Author:

HARUKI MURAKAMI was born in Kyoto in 1949 and now lives near Tokyo. His work has been translated into more than fifty languages, and the most recent of his many international honors is the Jerusalem Prize, whose previous recipients include J. M. Coetzee, Milan Kundera, and V. S. Naipaul. Translated by Ted Goossen.

Review:

"Murakami's atomic sensibility characterizes world literature." —The New York Times Book Review

"An invaluable addition to the [Murakami] canon." —Toronto Star

"Powerful, unsettling, mature novels, replete with many of the same distinctive traits that characterize [Murakami's] later fiction." —Chicago Tribune

"These new-old books are short but by no means slight. Nor are they only for hard-core Murakami fans. Despite plots that offer little more than a catalogue of bizarre events and random musings, there are enough flashes of brilliance to keep the reader interested. Signals that would become familiar in Mr. Murakami's fiction make an early appearance: characters alienated by society and afflicted by loneliness and ennui; quotidian detail that is, by turn, banal and fascinating; musical references; supernatural undertones; dark dreams and black humour. . . . Readers can be grateful. Wind/Pinball is a fresh, heart-warming dose of the Japanese master." —The Economist

"A pair of early literary excursions that are never less than insightful and intelligent; brisk and diverting; unusual and transporting; and that offer a fascinating insight into the imagination of a young writer who would go on, as it is phrased at the beginning of Hear the Wind Sing, to 'tell the story of the world in words far more beautiful than these.'" —The National (UAE)

"Wind/Pinball is a must-have for Murakami fans who want to know how he evolved and who might want to begin re-reading his work chronologically. It is a book that might even sway those on the fence because of the sheer audacity of his plots and the knowledge that even Murakami at one time was afraid he might fail." —The Straits Times (Singapore)

"[Hear the Wind Sing and Pinball, 1973] mark the value of legacy, are striking even in their formative, flawed states, and clearly show a writer of innovation emerging and developing his formidable talent." —The Independent (UK)

"Quintessential Murakami." —The Guardian (UK)

"There is a profundity in these novels that is both laced with humor and left open to the elements. . . . There are themes here—of universality, isolation, fixation and the delightfully bizarre—that will play out time and again in Murakami's future work. . . . Wind/Pinball is a very fine beginning indeed!" —The Buffalo News

"Murakami's way of making emotionally resonant images and symbols bump around on the page, and in one's mind, remains fresh, miraculously, more than 35 years on." —Evening Standard (UK)

About this edition

• Publisher: Bond Street Books
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 038568181X
• ISBN 13: 9780385681810
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256