The Elephant Vanishes

Zusatztext “These are beautifully written stories! often funny! always moving.” – Chicago Tribune “Eerie! unsettling. . . . [A] wonderful combination of the bizarre and the mundane.” – Village Voice Literary Supplement “Charming! humorous and frequently puzzling . . . The Elephant Vanishes [is] fun to read.” – The New York Times “These stories show us Japan as it’s experienced from the inside. . . . [They] take place in parallel worlds not so much remote from ordinary life as hidden within its surfaces. . . . Even in the slipperiest of Mr. Murakami’s stories! pinpoints of detail flash out . . . warm with life! hopelessly–and wonderfully–unstable.” – The New York Times Book Review “A stunning writer at work in an era of international literature.” – Newsday “Enchanting…intriguing…all of these tales have a wonderfully surreal quality and a hip! witty tone. Mr. Murakami has pulled off a tricky feat! writing stories about people who are bored but never boring. He left me lying awake at night! hungry for more.” – Wall Street Journal “ The Elephant Vanishes ! through [its] bold originality and charming surrealism! should win the author new readers in this country.” – Detroit Free Press Informationen zum Autor HARUKI MURAKAMI was born in Kyoto in 1949 and now lives near Tokyo. His work has been translated into more than fifty languages, and one of the most recent of his many international honors is the Cino Del Duca World Prize, whose previous recipients include Jorge Luis Borges, Ismail Kadare, Mario Vargas Llosa, and Joyce Carol Oates. Klappentext Includes the story "Barn Burning" which is now the basis for the major motion picture Burning In the tales that make up The Elephant Vanishes, the imaginative genius that has made Haruki Murakami an international superstar is on full display. In these stories, a man sees his favorite elephant vanish into thin air; a newlywed couple suffers attacks of hunger that drive them to hold up a McDonald's in the middle of the night; and a young woman discovers that she has become irresistible to a little green monster who burrows up through her backyard. By turns haunting and hilarious, in The Elephant Vanishes Murakami crosses the border between separate realities-and comes back bearing remarkable treasuresfrom "The Wind-up Bird And Tuesday's Women" I'm in the kitchen cooking spaghetti when the woman calls. Another moment until the spaghetti is done; there I am, whistling the prelude to Rossini's La Gazza Ladra along with the FM radio. Perfect spaghetti-cooking music. I hear the telephone ring but tell myself, Ignore it. Let the spaghetti finish cooking. It's almost done, and besides, Claudio Abbado and the London Symphony Orchestra are coming to a crescendo. Still, on second thought, I figure I might as well turn down the flame and head into the living room, cooking chopsticks in hand, to pick up the receiver. It might be a friend, it occurs to me, possibly with word of a new job. "I want ten minutes of your time," comes a woman's voice out of the blue. "Excuse me?" I blurt back in surprise. "How's that again?" "I said, just ten minutes of your time, that's all I want," the woman repeats. I have absolutely no recollection of ever hearing this woman's voice before. And I pride myself on a near-perfect ear for voices, so I'm sure there's no mistake. This is the voice of a woman I don't know. A soft, low, nondescript voice. "Pardon me, but what number might you have been calling?" I put on my most polite language. "What difference does that make? All I want is ten minutes of your time. Ten minutes to come to an understanding." She cinches the matter quick and neat. "Come to an understanding?" "Of our feelings," says the woman succinctly.

Product details

• Authors: Haruki Murakami
• Publisher: Vintage Books
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 01.01.1994
• EAN: 9780679750536
• ISBN: 978-0-679-75053-6
• No. of pages: 336
• Dimensions: 132 mm x 203 mm x 19 mm
• Weight: 268 g
• Series: Vintage International; Vintage International
• Subject: Fiction > Narrative literature