Wind/ Pinball

Haruki Murakami's first two novels, available for the first time in English in Vintage's Murakami backlist style.Discover Haruki Murakami's first two novels.'If you're the sort of guy who raids the refrigerators of silent kitchens at three o'clock in the morning, you can only write accordingly.That's who I am.'Hear the Wind Sing and Pinball, 1973 are Haruki Murakami's earliest novels. They follow the fortunes of the narrator and his friend, known only by his nickname, the Rat. In Hear the Wind Sing the narrator is home from college on his summer break. He spends his time drinking beer and smoking in J's Bar with the Rat, listening to the radio, thinking about writing and the women he has slept with, and pursuing a relationship with a girl with nine fingers.Three years later, in Pinball, 1973, he has moved to Tokyo to work as a translator and live with indistinguishable twin girls, but the Rat has remained behind, despite his efforts to leave both the town and his girlfriend. The narrator finds himself haunted by memories of his own doomed relationship but also, more bizarrely, by his short-lived obsession with playing pinball in J's Bar. This sends him on a quest to find the exact model of pinball machine he had enjoyed playing years earlier- the three-flipper Spaceship.

“Murakami fans will no doubt delight in this new publication. For newcomers, these early works are an excellent introduction to a writer who has since become one of the most influential novelists of his generation”

-- Hannah Beckerman Observer
Murakami’s way of making emotionally resonant images and symbols bump around on the page, and in one’s mind, remains fresh, miraculously, more than 35 years on -- Jerome Boyd Maunsell Evening Standard
Wind/Pinball is a fresh, heart-warming dose of the Japanese master Economist
To read a Murakami book is to feel comforted by the familiarity and predictability of its strangeness. These are Murakami’s two earliest novels and so, like archaeological artefacts, they detail the early construction of his now-famous style. -- Claire Kohda Hazelton The Times Literary Supplement
quintessential Murakami… an excellent introduction to a writer who has since become one of the most influential novelists of his generation -- Guardian Hannah Beckerman
This two-for-the-price-of-one hardback really is something special… The decorative covers are exquisite, but it is the literature between them that cemented Murakami as one of the world’s most celebrated writers -- Dan Lewis Travel Guide
Early Murakami isn’t Murakami-in-the-making, it’s already and entirely Murakami -- Ian Sansom Guardian
bizarre and often surreal, these stories act as an intriguing exploration into Murakami’s wacky mind and thought processes Herald
Wind/Pinball makes a great introduction to Murakami for new readers, and is a real treat for long-time fans -- Brendan Wright Nudge
From the very beginning, it seems, Murakami has had the ability to make a story in which nothing happens seem completely irresistible. And to make almost any degree of bizarreness seem completely natural Skinny

Haruki Murakami (Author)In 1978, Haruki Murakami was twenty-nine and running a jazz bar in downtown Tokyo. One April day, the impulse to write a novel came to him suddenly while watching a baseball game. That first novel, Hear the Wind Sing, won a new writers' award and was published the following year. More followed, including A Wild Sheep Chase and Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, but it was Norwegian Wood, published in 1987, that turned Murakami from a writer into a phenomenon.In works such as The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, 1Q84, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running and Men Without Women, Murakami's distinctive blend of the mysterious and the everyday, of melancholy and humour, continues to enchant readers, ensuring his place as one of the world's most acclaimed and well-loved writers.Ted Goossen (Translator)Theodore (Ted) Goossen has translated the workof many Japanese writers, most notably NaoyaShiga, Haruki Murakami, and Hiromi Kawakami.He is the editor of The Oxford Book of JapaneseShort Stories (1997) and the co-editor and founder, with Motoyuki Shibata, of the annualliterary journal Monkey Business (now Monkey-new writing from Japan), which, since 2011, hasintroduced a new generation of Japanese writers to English-speaking readers. Essays and stories by, as well as interviews with, Murakami are a staple of every issue.

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