The Wind-up Bird Chronicles

For “The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle,” Murakami received the prestigious Yomiuri Literary Prize in Japan. Toru Okada is a thirty-year-old man living in his own quiet world: with his beloved wife, a cat jokingly named after his brother-in-law, and a small house in a good neighborhood. He quit his job, but saw nothing wrong with it. But fate decided to play tricks on him. First the cat disappeared, then a strange woman began calling him constantly, and then his wife left. One after another, old prophecies began to come true, bringing countless questions into his life and not a single answer. But in the end, the mysteries formed an intricate pattern… “A person cannot live without finding themselves. It is like the ground beneath your feet. Without it, you can build nothing.” “The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle” is an expansive work—containing letters, mystical dreams, memories, magazine articles, and encoded files—a cohesive tapestry woven from incredible events, subtle irony, and Haruki Murakami’s inimitable voice.