First published in 1992 as国境の南、太陽の西(Kokkyō no minami, taiyō no nishi) by Kodansha, TokyoA moving, thoughtful story of long-lost love & second chances.Born in 1951 in an affluent Tokyo suburb, Hajime—beginning in Japanese—has arrived at middle age wanting for almost nothing. The postwar years have brought him a fine marriage, two daughters, & an enviable career as the proprietor of two jazz clubs. Yet a nagging sense of inauthenticity about his success threatens Hajime’s happiness. And a boyhood memory of a wise, lonely girl named Shimamoto clouds his heart.InSouth of the Border, West of the Sun, the simple arc of a man’s life—with its attendant rhythms of success & disappointment—becomes the exquisite literary terrain ofHaruki Murakami’smost haunting work. When Shimamoto shows up one rainy night, now a breathtaking beauty with a secret from which she is unable to escape, the fault lines of doubt in Hajime’s quotidian existence begin to give way. And the details of stolen moments past & present—a Nat King Cole melody, a face pressed against a window, a handful of ashes drifting downriver to the sea—threaten to undo him completely. Rich, mysterious, quietly dazzling,South of the Border, West of the SunisMurakami’swisest & most compelling work.penguin.co.uk/vintage°°°“Casablanca remade Japanese style...It is dream-like writing, laden with scenes which have the radiance of a poem” —The Times°°°Haruki Murakamiwas born in Kyoto, Japan, in1949. He grew up in Kobe & then moved to Tokyo, where he attended Waseda University. After college, Murakami opened a small jazz bar, which he & his wife ran for seven years.In1978Haruki Murakami was in the bleachers of Jingu Stadium watching a baseball game between the Yakult Swallows & the Hiroshima Carp when Dave Hilton, an American, came to bat. According to an oft-repeated story, in the instant that he hit a double, Murakami suddenly realized that he could write a novel.