The Elephant Vanishes

A town’s elephant vanishes overnight. A man eats spaghetti every Friday precisely at six. A woman becomes so absorbed in sleeping that she can no longer remain awake. Welcome to the world of Haruki Murakami — where the ordinary and the surreal coexist with quiet, unsettling force, and where the strangest things reveal the deepest truths about what it means to be alive.

The Elephant Vanishes was the collection that introduced Murakami to English-language readers and established his reputation as one of the most original voices in contemporary world literature. Seventeen stories, each in its own way perfect: precise, funny, melancholy, and shot through with the uncanny. From ‘Barn Burning’ to ‘Sleep’ to ‘The Dancing Dwarf’, these are the stories of a writer completely in control of his remarkable gifts.

Whether you are discovering Murakami for the first time or deepening a long love affair with his work, The Elephant Vanishes is essential. It contains some of the finest short fiction written in the late twentieth century by anyone, anywhere. Translated by Alfred Birnbaum and Jay Rubin. Published by Vintage.