The Wind-Up Bird ChronicleRecommendations
About the book
Japan's most highly regarded novelist now vaults into the first ranks of international fiction writers with this heroically imaginative novel, which is at once a detective story, an account of a disintegrating marriage, and an excavation of the buried secrets of World War II.
In a Tokyo suburb a young man named Toru Okada searches for his wife's missing cat. Soon he finds himself looking for his wife as well in a netherworld that lies beneath the placid surface of Tokyo. As these searches intersect, Okada encounters a bizarre group of allies and antagonists: a psychic prostitute; a malevolent yet mediagenic politician; a cheerfully morbid sixteen-year-old-girl; and an aging war veteran who has been permanently changed by the hideous things he witnessed during Japan's forgotten campaign in Manchuria.
Gripping, prophetic, suffused with comedy and menace, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is a tour de force equal in scope to the masterpieces of Mishima and Pynchon.
People recommending The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
What readers say about ‘The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle’
Harry Styles on The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
“For his 25th birthday, [Harry Styles] spent five hours drinking tea and reading [this book] in a cafe in Tokyo.”
Brian Koppelman on The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
“"If you have always wanted to read [this author], I think this [Covid-19] period of time is perfect for it. He could have conceived of this whole thing."”
