
Part of Series
Haruki Murakami's best-loved stories finally in graphic novel form! Haruki Murakami's novels, essays and short stories have sold millions of copies worldwide and been translated into scores of languages. Now for the first time, in this three-volume series, Murakami's best-loved stories are available in manga form in English. With their trademark mix of realism and fantasy, centering around Murakami's signature themes of loss, remorse and confusion, the three stories in this volume are: The Second Bakery Attack: A newlywed couple lie in bed, hungry. The man tells his wife that ten years earlier, he and his friend tried to rob a bakery. The baker told them that if they listened to Wagner's Tannhauser and The Flying Dutchman with him, they could take what they wanted. They did so and left with enough bread to feed them for two days. On hearing this story, the woman suggests they try the same thing. They drive around Tokyo looking for a bakery, but the only place open is a McDonald's. With a shotgun they demand 30 Big Macs. They find an empty parking lot where they eat until their fill. The man feels calm and satisfied after this experience. Samsa in Love: is an extension of the tale of Gregor Samsa in Kafka's Metamorphosis. The main character wakes up finding himself transformed into someone named Samsa, and then falls in love with a hunchback woman who comes to fix the lock on his door. Thailand: A middle-aged woman takes a break from her job as a doctor to go on holiday in Thailand. She learns from a spirit doctor that her sterile life and inability to forgive have created a rock in her gut, which will be all that remains of her after she is dead. These new graphic versions of classic Murakami short stories will be devoured by his fans and will provide a new window onto his work for younger readers not yet familiar with it!
Author

Murakami Haruki (Japanese: 村上 春樹) is a popular contemporary Japanese writer and translator. His work has been described as 'easily accessible, yet profoundly complex'. He can be located on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/harukimuraka... Since childhood, Murakami has been heavily influenced by Western culture, particularly Western music and literature. He grew up reading a range of works by American writers, such as Kurt Vonnegut and Richard Brautigan, and he is often distinguished from other Japanese writers by his Western influences. Murakami studied drama at Waseda University in Tokyo, where he met his wife, Yoko. His first job was at a record store, which is where one of his main characters, Toru Watanabe in Norwegian Wood, works. Shortly before finishing his studies, Murakami opened the coffeehouse 'Peter Cat' which was a jazz bar in the evening in Kokubunji, Tokyo with his wife. Many of his novels have themes and titles that invoke classical music, such as the three books making up The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: The Thieving Magpie (after Rossini's opera), Bird as Prophet (after a piano piece by Robert Schumann usually known in English as The Prophet Bird), and The Bird-Catcher (a character in Mozart's opera The Magic Flute). Some of his novels take their titles from songs: Dance, Dance, Dance (after The Dells' song, although it is widely thought it was titled after the Beach Boys tune), Norwegian Wood (after The Beatles' song) and South of the Border, West of the Sun (the first part being the title of a song by Nat King Cole).