街とその不確かな壁（上巻)

by Haruki Murakami, 村上春樹

著者は1980年に中編小説「街と、その不確かな壁」、1985年に壮大な長編小説『世界の終りとハードボイルド・ワンダーランド』（谷崎潤一郎賞受賞）を発表した。幻想世界の〝街〟とスリリングな冒険活劇が並行して描かれ、この長編は世界中の読者を魅了した。
村上春樹の〝街〟とは何か――『街とその不確かな壁』は、40年の歳月を経て、著者がその〝街〟に立ち戻り、新たに三部構成で描かれた長編小説である。文庫版は、上下二冊で刊行。
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十七歳と十六歳の夏の夕暮れ、きみは川べりに腰を下ろし、〝街〟 について語り出す――それが物語の始まりだった。高い壁と望楼に囲まれた遥か遠くの謎めいた街。そこに“本当のきみ”がいるという。＜古い夢＞が並ぶ図書館、石造りの三つの橋、針のない時計台、金雀児(えにしだ)の葉、角笛と金色の獣たち。だが、その街では人々は影を持たない……村上春樹が封印してきた「物語」の扉が、いま開かれる。

464 pages, Paperback

Published April 23, 2025

About the author

Haruki Murakami (村上春樹) is a Japanese writer. His novels, essays, and short stories have been best-sellers in Japan and internationally, with his work translated into 50 languages and having sold millions of copies outside Japan. He has received numerous awards for his work, including the Gunzo Prize for New Writers, the World Fantasy Award, the Tanizaki Prize, Yomiuri Prize for Literature, the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, the Noma Literary Prize, the Franz Kafka Prize, the Kiriyama Prize for Fiction, the Goodreads Choice Awards for Best Fiction, the Jerusalem Prize, and the Princess of Asturias Awards.
Growing up in Ashiya, near Kobe before moving to Tokyo to attend Waseda University, he published his first novel Hear the Wind Sing (1979) after working as the owner of a small jazz bar for seven years. His notable works include the novels Norwegian Wood (1987), The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (1994–95), Kafka on the Shore (2002) and 1Q84 (2009–10); the last was ranked as the best work of Japan's Heisei era (1989–2019) by the national newspaper Asahi Shimbun's survey of literary experts. His work spans genres including science fiction, fantasy, and crime fiction, and has become known for his use of magical realist elements. His official website cites Raymond Chandler, Kurt Vonnegut and Richard Brautigan as key inspirations to his work, while Murakami himself has named Kazuo Ishiguro, Cormac McCarthy and Dag Solstad as his favourite currently active writers. Murakami has also published five short story collections, including First Person Singular (2020), and non-fiction works including Underground (1997), an oral history of the Tokyo subway sarin attack, and What I Talk About When I Talk About Running (2007), a memoir about his experience as a long distance runner.
His fiction has polarized literary critics and the reading public. He has sometimes been criticised by Japan's literary establishment as un-Japanese, leading to Murakami's recalling that he was a "black sheep in the Japanese literary world". Meanwhile, Murakami has been described by Gary Fisketjon, the editor of Murakami's collection The Elephant Vanishes (1993), as a "truly extraordinary writer", while Steven Poole of The Guardian praised Murakami as "among the world's greatest living novelists" for his oeuvre.