Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

This mysterious title is the literalized English translation of Haruki Murakami’s newest novel, released today in Japan. Until this point, almost nothing has been released about the work, and even now, the title and the bits of plot offered by those who’ve only had time to devour a few chapters remain pretty enigmatic. But oh, am I excited! I was able to read this, the Easy NHK News article about its release, but my Japanese isn’t nearly as good as it needs to be to read the novel in the original language. Sadly, unless I can become more fluent more quickly, I’m going to have to wait for the English translation.

I’m currently struggling to read this light novel, which is theoretically much, much easier than a full-length novel by an author whose language is surreal, poetic, and playful. I’ve heard Murakami’s Sputnik Sweetheart is pretty “easy” in the original, but let me finish this young adult novel about a wolf-goddess and her merchant companion first. (I’m learning loads of Japanese economics terms! Reminds me of UIC in a lot of ways–learning economics in a literary context. Hm).

Look at that cover!