…In the evenings I sold records. In between, I absent-mindedly watched the crowd passing in front of the window. Families, couples, drunks, yakuza, lively girls in miniskirts, guys with beatnik beards, bar hostesses and other obscure people. As soon as the rock was on, hippies and bums gathered outside the store – some were dancing, some were sniffing solvent, some were just sitting on the pavement. I stopped realizing what was going on at all. “What on earth is this? – I thought. – What are they all trying to say?”

The novel is a classic of modern Japanese literature, which brought the author truly worldwide fame.

Author: Haruki Murakami
Published:  1987
Original language:  English
Literary Genre: Modern Prose, Psychological Romance