Murakami returns to the bookstores of Japan with “The story of Kaho”

“Kaho, author of illustrated books, is an ordinary young woman. But really strange things are happening around him,” Murakami himself commented on the novel in a message published on Shinchosha’s website.

“ I wrote this novel putting myself in her place”, he added, referring to the 26-year-old protagonist, a story that begins with a blind date in which the companion claims never to have seen such an ugly woman.

It is the first book with a female protagonist of the icon of Japanese contemporary literature, born in Kyoto in 1949 and with works that usually portray young or middle-aged men, narrated in the first person.

“The story of Kaho” arrives three years after “The City and its Uncertain Walls” (Casa das Letras, 2025) and originates from the story “Kaho”, published in 2024, which Murakami read that same year to the public at the University of Waseda.

Since then, the author has published three other stories about Kaho in Shincho magazine, the last of them in March.

This issue aroused the curiosity of the lovers of literature and fans of Murakami in the archipelago – even if some know the novel for having read the stories – to the point that some readers have moved to important bookstores in Tokyo at midnight to have access to the book in advance.

Recently reopened after four years of renovation works in the Jimbocho neighborhood of the capital, Sanseido turned down the lights for a group of readers willing to spend the night reading Murakami, tucked in between the shelves.

Also Kinokuniya's emblematic bookstore, located in Shinjuku district, organized a countdown at midnight for fans of Murakami who stay up late, although morning readers were not missing this morning.