This classic yet controversial Japanese novel is available for the first time in English--a high-octane thriller about senseless youth violence that is a potent allegory of what it means to be young and survive in today's dog-eat-dog world.
A timeless, terrifying tale of one man’s obsession to create life—and the monster that became his legacy. “If ever a book needed to be placed in context, it’s Frankenstein” (The New York Times Book Review). ENDURING LITERATURE ILLUMINATED BY PRACTICAL SCHOLARSHIP A timeless, terrifying tale of one man's obsession to create life—and the monster that became his legacy. EACH ENRICHED CLASSIC EDITION INCLUDES: • A concise introduction that gives readers important background information • A chronology of the author’s life and work • A timeline of significant events that provides the book’s historical context • An outline of key themes and plot points to help readers form their own interpretations • Detailed explanatory notes • Critical analysis, including contemporary and modern perspectives on the work • Discussion questions to promote lively classroom and book group interaction • A list of recommended related books and films to broaden the reader’s experience Enriched Classics offer readers affordable editions of great works of literature enhanced by helpful notes and insightful commentary. The scholarship provided in Enriched Classics enables readers to appreciate, understand, and enjoy the world’s finest books to their full potential. SERIES EDITED BY CYNTHIA BRANTLEY JOHNSON
ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE'S 100 BEST MYSTERY AND THRILLER BOOKS OF ALL TIME • Winner of Japan's Grand Prix for Crime Fiction • Edgar Award Finalist • Nothing in Japanese literature prepares us for the stark, tension-filled, plot-driven realism of Natsuo Kirino’s award-winning literary mystery Out. This mesmerizing novel tells the story of a brutal murder in the staid Tokyo suburbs, as a young mother who works the night shift making boxed lunches strangles her abusive husband and then seeks the help of her coworkers to dispose of the body and cover up her crime. The coolly intelligent Masako emerges as the plot’s ringleader, but quickly discovers that this killing is merely the beginning, as it leads to a terrifying foray into the violent underbelly of Japanese society. At once a masterpiece of literary suspense and pitch-black comedy of gender warfare, Out is also a moving evocation of the pressures and prejudices that drive women to extreme deeds, and the friendships that bolster them in the aftermath.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the acclaimed author of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and one of the world’s greatest storytellers comes “an insistently metaphysical mind-bender” (The New Yorker) about a teenager on the run and a deceptively simple old man. Now with a new introduction by the author. Here we meet fifteen-year-old runaway Kafka Tamura and the elderly Nakata, who is drawn to Kafka for reasons that he cannot fathom. As their paths converge, acclaimed author Haruki Murakami enfolds readers in a world where cats talk, fish fall from the sky, and spirits slip out of their bodies to make love or commit murder, in what is a truly remarkable journey. “As powerful as The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.... Reading Murakami ... is a striking experience in consciousness expansion.”—Chicago Tribune
