Author: murakami, haruki (Keywords)

This collection of stories exposes Japan as it is experienced from the inside. The stories take place in parallel worlds, not so much remote from normal life as hidden beneath its surface.

Toru Watanabe is looking back on the love and passions of his life and trying to make sense of it all. As his first love, Naoko, sinks deeper and deeper into mental despair, he is inexorably pushed to find new meanings and new love to survive.

Okada is apparently a happy man - his domestic life seems familiar and comfortable, but admittedly he has just quit his job, the cat has disappeared and a strange woman is bothering him with explicit phone calls.

Hajime and Shimamoto had been childhood sweethearts. Now, as middle age approaches, the two meet up again. Hajime, now a father and husband, finds himself propelled into the dark, mysterious realm of Shimamoto's life.

K, a primary school teacher, is in love with Sumire. But Sumire is in love with an older woman - Miu. Frustrated, K has an affair with the mother of one of his pupils. Then Miu asks him to meet her as something very strange has happened to Sumire.