First Person Singular

A brilliant new collection of short stories from the unique mind of the internationallly bestselling author of Men Without Women and Killing Commendatore . In these eight stories, Haruki Murakami explores the world from his unique perspective. From the imaginative to the intimate, he moves from an alternate history of the legendary jazz musician Charlie Parker to a man reminiscing about his childhood girlfriend. These stories encompass his great enthusiasms for baseball, jazz and The Beatles and demonstrate his singular, mesmerising voice.

Autorentext

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 and Men Without Women, 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.

Klappentext

**PRE-ORDER HARUKI MURAKAMI'S NEW NOVEL, THE CITY AND ITS UNCERTAIN WALLS, NOW

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 BESTSELLER

The 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