Haruki Murakami’s latest novel, “Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage,” will be published in the United States on Aug. 12, Alfred A. Knopf has announced. The novel was an enormous hit in Japan in April, where it sold more than a million copies in its first week, according to Knopf.The publisher did not release any details about the plot. But according to The guardian, it concerns a man whose four best friends from high school — Mr. Red, Mr. Blue, Miss White and Miss Black — ostracize him because his name lacks a kanji character for a color.
In an interview last year with the Australian, the translator Philip Gabriel (who collaborated with Jay Rubin on bringing Mr. Murakami’s last novel, the nearly thousand-page «1084,»into English), said the new novel, listed by Knopf at a mere 352 pages, was “more lapidary” in style than “1Q84,” and “more tightly focused on one person’s journey.”
By Jennifer Schuessler, The New York Times