The City and its Uncertain Walls
ABOUT
THE BOOK
A love story, a quest, an ode to books and to the libraries that house them, The City and Its Uncertain Walls is a parable for these strange times.
STEP INTO THE CITY. . .
When a young man’s girlfriend mysteriously vanishes, he sets his heart on finding the imaginary city where her true self lives. His search will lead him to take a job in a remote library with mysteries of its own.
When he finally makes it to the walled city, a shadowless place of horned beasts and willow trees, he finds his beloved working in a different library – a dream library. But she has no memory
Original title in Japanese 街とその不確かな壁, published by Shinchosha
ABOUT
THE TRANSLATOR Philip
Gabriel
Philip Gabriel is Emeritus Professor of Japanese literature in the Department of East Asian Studies, the University of Arizona. He is the author of Mad Wives and Island Dreams: Shimao Toshio and the Margins of Japanese Literature and Spirit Matters: The Transcendent in Modern Japanese Literature and has translated many novels and short stories by the writer Haruki Murakami and other modern writers. He is recipient of the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature (2001) for his translation of Senji Kuroi’s Life in the Cul-de-Sac, and the 2006 PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize for his translation of Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore.
Philip Gabriel is Emeritus Professor of Japanese literature in the Department of East Asian Studies, the University of Arizona. He is the author of Mad Wives and Island Dreams: Shimao Toshio and the Margins of Japanese Literature and Spirit Matters: The Transcendent in Modern Japanese Literature and has translated many novels and short stories by the writer Haruki Murakami and other modern writers. He is recipient of the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature (2001) for his translation of Senji Kuroi’s Life in the Cul-de-Sac, and the 2006 PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize for his translation of Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore.
NOMINATING LIBRARY COMMENTS
Murakami once again uses his idiosyncratic style – a blend of magical realism, Kafkaesque existentialism and a poetic slapstick reminiscent of Douglas Adams, all wrapped into the contemporary way of life in Japan. He offers a beautiful rendition of love and loss that is equally sad and comforting. (Frankfurt am Main Public Library)