Trade PB. 8vo. Alfred A. Knopf, New York. 2002. 181 pgs. Uncorrected Proof.

Trade PB. 8vo. Alfred A. Knopf, New York. 2002. 181 pgs. Uncorrected Proof. Issued in orange wraps with black titles present to the front wrapper. Mock-up of the DJ present as the FFEP. No ownership marks present. Text is clean and free of marks, binding tight and solid, boards clean with no wear present. The uncorrected proof for Murakami's second story collection, comprised of six pieces written in the wake of Japan's 1995 earthquake in Kobe. In 1995, the physical and social landscape of Japan was transformed by two events: the Kobe earthquake, in January, which destroyed thousands of lives, and the poison-gas attacks in the Tokyo subways in March, during the morning rush hour. Following these twin disasters, Haruki Murakami abandoned his life abroad and returned home to confront his country's grief. The subway attack led to his recent Underground. And out of the quake come these six stories, set in the months between natural catastrophe and man-made terrorism. His characters find their resolutely normal everyday lives undone by events even more surreal (yet somehow believable) than we have come to expect in his fiction. EB; 7.1 X 5.0 X 0.8 inches; 192 pages.