Murakami Novel Cloaked in Secrecy

Fans know they want to buy Haruki Murakami’s new novel this Friday, but they have no idea what it’s about. Publishers, who said Murakami’s earlier novel Kafka on the Shore suffered from over-exposure before it hit shelves, have only revealed the book’s title, 1Q84 (1984). The strategy appears to be working: publishers increased the print run to almost 500,000 after orders flooded in. Murakami is considered to be the country’s top candidate for the Nobel Prize. His earlier work, Norwegian Wood, sold 9.2 million copies and skyrocketed the private author to fame. Note to anxious fans: if his past books are any indication, 1Q94 will feature beautiful women (and their ears), magical cats, and astonishingly evil villains. The two-volume novel is 1,000 pages long.