Haruki Murakami's new novel, eagerly awaited by readers around the world, is out after five years!
The overwhelming intensity of the story, the incredible appeal that makes it impossible to stop reading,
It draws a clear line while embracing all of the previous works.
The definitive edition of Haruki Murakami's literature!

Now, Japan is once again abuzz with the "Murakami phenomenon," following the release of "A Time to Lose."

Haruki Murakami, who is nominated for the Nobel Prize every year and has readers not only in Japan but also around the world.
His new full-length novel, 『1Q84』, published seven years after 『Kafka on the Shore』 and five years after 『Beyond Darkness』, ranked first on the comprehensive bestseller list on the first day of pre-orders before its release, and sold 680,000 copies on May 29th alone.
Additionally, it sold 1 million copies in just 10 days after its release, and it is estimated that more than 2.23 million copies were sold by the end of July, less than two months after its release.


Shinchosha, the publisher of “1Q84,” said, “This is an unusual speed,” as the book sold out immediately after its release.
“It is sold out nationwide, so it seems like the book will only be available on the market after June 11th,” he said.
Shinchosha printed 200,000 copies of Volume 1 and 180,000 copies of Volume 2 for the first edition, but was surprised by the enthusiastic response from readers, including the fact that all pre-orders on Amazon Japan sold out, and printed an additional 50,000 copies of each on May 22, even before publication.
Nevertheless, after about two weeks of publication, most bookstores posted alternating announcements of 'out of stock → restocking'.
Volumes 1 and 2 of "1Q84," which were sold out in bookstores and had Japanese readers lining up to buy them, rose to the top spot in book sales in Japan in 2009 just three months after their publication, and are currently holding the top spot on the literature bestseller list of Kinokuniya, a major Japanese bookstore, for 12 weeks.


Moreover, the popularity of the novel has expanded to include related books and albums.
According to a Sony Music Japan official, Janáček's "Sinfonietta," the song that Aomame, the protagonist of the novel, listens to in a taxi, sold 2,000 copies in the nine years since its release, but within a week of the publication of "1Q84," orders surged to 9,000 copies.
The travelogue "Sakhalin Island" by Russian author Chekhov, which appears in the novel, was published in the 1950s and went out of print. However, due to a sudden influx of orders, the 1950s edition was reprinted without any revisions, which was an incident.
Recently, in Japanese bookstores, the August 2009 issues of 『Gunsho』 and 『Bungakukai』, which featured a "Haruki special," sold out completely, which is highly unusual for a literary magazine. In addition, more than five books containing "Reading 『1Q84』" and other content related to Haruki have been published, and thanks to brisk sales, that number is expected to increase further.