Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

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. In works such as The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, 1Q84, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, First Person Singular and The City and Its Uncertain Walls 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.

"More insights into life, death, memories, love and kangaroos that one has a right to expect in any single volume" Daily Express "An intimate pleasure" The Times "Literature's answer to David Lynch" Times Literary Supplement "These stories are rich in Murakami magic... a collection that all readers will enjoy" Independent "Sharp but humane observation...as unforgettable as it is untypical" New Statesman