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The Elephant Vanishes

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

A dizzying short story collection that displays Murakami's genius for uncovering the surreal in the everyday, the extraordinary within the ordinary

*Featuring the story 'Barn Burning', the inspiration behind the Palme d'Or nominated film Burning*

When a man's favourite elephant vanishes, the balance of his whole life is subtly upset. A couple's midnight hunger pangs drive them to hold up a McDonald's. A woman finds she is irresistible to a small green monster that burrows through her front garden. An insomniac wife wakes up in a twilight world of semi-consciousness in which anything seems possible - even death.

In every one of these stories Murakami makes a determined assault on the normal.

© Haruki Murakami 1993 (P) Penguin Audio 2020

Critics Review

How does Murakami manage to make poetry while writing of contemporary life and emotions? I am weak-kneed with admiration
Independent on Sunday
Enchanting...intriguing... All of these tales have a wonderfully surreal quality and a hip, witty tone
Wall Street Journal
All the stories take place in parallel worlds not so much remote from ordinary life as hidden within its surfaces: secret alleys that afford unexpected - and unsettling - views
New York Times
Like the best thriller fiction, it nags you with the sensation that Something Nasty is about to happen
Sunday Times
Most collections of short stories work by the interplay of different voices. This one offers the more satisfying rewards of a novel: unity of tone and a richness of recurring detail that creates its own texture: spaghetti, lawns, hamburgers, beer-drinking, kid sisters, Sunday afternoons, a man's name
Independent
Author Haruki Murakami
Narrator Nezar Alderazi, Susan Momoko Hingley
Duration 10 hours and 53 minutes
Release Date
ISBN 9781473582606
Format Audiobook
Publisher Random House
Genre Fiction in translation, Modern and contemporary fiction, Short stories
Availability AU, GB, IE

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