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Haruki Murakami was born in Kyoto in 1949 and now lives near Tokyo. He is the author of many novels as well as short stories and non-fiction. His works include Norwegian Wood, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Kafka on the Shore, After Dark and What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. His work has been translated into more than forty languages, and the most recent of his many international honours is the Jerusalem Prize, whose previous recipients include J.M. Coetzee, Milan Kundera, and V.S. Naipaul.
Sequel to A Wild Sheep Chase, picking up the nameless narrator four years after he lost the woman with the beautiful ears in Hokkaido. Now, in his dreams, she summons him back there. This time he becomes involved with a bespectacled receptionist, a 13-year-old girl, a one-armed poet, two hookers and a matinee idol, all linked by supernatural experiences and a murder mystery. Apart from the Hokkaido hotel, the locations are Tokyo (it helps to have a street map handy) and Hawaii. As always in Murakami's work, there is a lot of consumption, especially drinking; anomie, both acute and free-floating; and naff rock-band name checks. The story unfolds slowly and repetitively, the cuteness is sometimes forced, and the metaphysical message amounts to little more than the title injunction, but the author has a plangent charm all his own. Alas, the translator is Alfred Birnbaum again. First published in Japan 1988. (Kirkus UK)
