Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

Author(s): Haruki Murakami

Short Stories

An eclectic, eccentiric and altogether brain-bending new collection of short stories from the cult Japanese author. A young man accompanies his cousin to the hospital to check an unusual hearing complaint and recalls a story of a woman put to sleep by tiny flies crawling inside her ear; a mirror appears out of nowhere and a night-watchman is unnerved as his reflection tries to take control of him; a couple's relationship is unbalanced after dining exclusively on exquisite crab while on holiday; a man follows instructions on the back of a postcard to apply for a job but an unknown password stands between him and his mysterious employer. In each one of these stories Murakami sidesteps the real and sprints for the surreal. Everyday events are transcended leaving the reader dazzled by this master of the craft. Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman is Murakami's most eclectic collection of stories yet, and spans five years of his writing. The author has written an introduction to explain the diversity of his choice.


Product Information

Winner of Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award 2006.

Haruki Murakami was born in Kyoto in 1949. Following the publication of his first novel in Japanese in 1979, he sold the jazz bar he ran with his wife and became a full-time writer. It was with the publication of Norwegian Wood - which has to date sold more than 4 million copies in Japan alone - that the author was truly catapulted into the limelight. Known for his surrealistic world of mysterious (and often disappearing) women, cats, earlobes, wells, Western culture, music and quirky first-person narratives, he is now Japan's best-known novelist abroad. Eight novels, two short story collections and one work of non-fiction are currently available in English translation. Stories translated by Jay Rubin and Philip Gabriel

General Fields

  • : 9781843433064
  • : Penguin Random House
  • : Penguin Books Ltd
  • : July 2006
  • : United Kingdom
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : Haruki Murakami
  • : Paperback
  • : English
  • : 895.635
  • : 352