Skip to footer

Haruki Murakami's 'The Strange Library' will be published in English this December

Murakami's novel 'Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage' is still topping US bestseller lists.

'The Strange Library' is by Haruki Murakami.
  • By Molly Driscoll Staff Writer

English-speaking fans of Japanese writer Haruki Murakami had to wait a long time to get their hands on a copy of Murakami’s newest novel “Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage”. But it will be a much shorter wait for the author's next English-language release.

Murakami’s novel “The Strange Library” will be published by Knopf in English on Dec. 2, according to the Guardian. The book, which was released in 2008 in Japanese has been translated by Ted Goossen. Its story centers on a boy who is captured by an elderly man who makes him memorize portions of books. The boy tries to escape with the aid of a man wearing a sheep costume and a young girl. “Library” is 96 pages long, according to The New York Times. 

The English-language version of the story will include new text and illustrations. “The Strange Library” is “as scary and surprising as anything [Murakami] has ever written,” Knopf’s chairman and editor in chief Sonny Mehta said in a statement.

Murakami’s book “Colorless,” which was released in English on Aug. 12, is currently ranked at number one on the The New York Times hardcover fiction bestseller list for the week of Sept. 7.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Haruki Murakami's 'The Strange Library' will be published in English this December
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2014/0902/Haruki-Murakami-s-The-Strange-Library-will-be-published-in-English-this-December
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe