After Dark

By Haruki Murakami | Translated by Jay Rubin l | Vintage International (2013)

A short, sleek novel of encounters set in the witching hours of Tokyo between midnight and dawn—and every bit as gripping as Haruki Murakami’s masterworks The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Kafka on the Shore—After Dark moves from mesmerizing drama to metaphysical speculation, interweaving time and space, memory and perspective into a seamless exploration of human agency—the interplay between self-expression and understanding, between the power of observation and the scope of compassion and love. Murakami’s trademark humour, psychological insight, and grasp of spirit and morality are here distilled with an extraordinary, harmonious mastery.