Author Guide · Japanese Fiction
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In 1978, at a baseball game in Tokyo, the owner of a small jazz bar decided he could write a novel. Haruki Murakami went home and started that night, writing in short stretches after work for ten months, and the book won the only prize he entered it for. Nearly half a century later he has published sixteen novels, the newest of which, The Tale of Kaho, came out in Japan in July 2026, along with stories, essays and a work of oral history, translated into fifty languages. This guide covers every novel in order, which ones belong together, everything else he has written, and where to start.
By Lisanne Swart · 16 novels · stories & nonfiction · Female authors · 1979–2026 · Updated September 2026
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Quick answer
Haruki Murakami has written sixteen novels, from Hear the Wind Sing (1979) to The Tale of Kaho, published in Japan in July 2026 and not yet translated into English. He has also published five short story collections, including Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman and Men Without Women, and nonfiction such as Underground and What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. Norwegian Wood (1987) is the easiest place to start; Kafka on the Shore (2002) if you want the full strangeness straight away.
Quick facts about Haruki Murakami
- Born
- January 12, 1949, Kyoto, Japan
- Grew up
- Nishinomiya, Ashiya and Kobe
- Lives
- Oiso, Kanagawa, with an office in Tokyo
- Education
- Waseda University, Tokyo, where he studied drama
- Before writing
- Ran Peter Cat, a coffee house and jazz bar in Kokubunji, Tokyo, 1974–1981
- Novels
- 16, from Hear the Wind Sing (1979) to The Tale of Kaho (2026)
- Translated into
- 50 languages
- Awards
- Tanizaki Prize (1985); World Fantasy Award and Franz Kafka Prize (2006); Jerusalem Prize (2009); Princess of Asturias Award for Literature (2023)
- Also a translator
- Of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Raymond Carver, Truman Capote, J. D. Salinger and John Irving into Japanese
- Library
- The Haruki Murakami Library at Waseda University opened in 2021
All 16 Haruki Murakami Novels, in Order
Hear the Wind Sing
His first novel, written at night after work at his jazz bar over about ten months, and the winner of the Gunzo Prize for New Writers. It introduces an unnamed narrator and his friend, the Rat. Murakami later called his first two novels immature, and they were not widely available in English until 2015, when they were published together as Wind/Pinball.
Read it for context rather than as a way in. It is slight, but you can already hear the voice he would spend decades refining.
— LisannePinball, 1973
The sequel, published a year later. The narrator becomes fixated on tracking down a pinball machine he once played obsessively, while the story of the Rat continues alongside his.
Read it straight after Hear the Wind Sing; they share one English edition. Together they are the warm-up for A Wild Sheep Chase.
— LisanneA Wild Sheep Chase
The last book of the Trilogy of the Rat and his first critical success. A man who works in advertising is forced to hunt for a sheep with a star-shaped mark on its back, and the search leads him to Hokkaido and back to the Rat. It won the Noma Literary Prize for new writers, and Murakami has called it the first book in which he felt the joy of telling a story.
The book where Murakami becomes Murakami. Start here if you like mysteries that stop making sense in the best possible way.
— LisanneHard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
Two stories in alternating chapters: a man caught up in an information war in a near-future Tokyo, and a man in a walled town who reads old dreams in its library after his shadow has been taken from him. It won the Tanizaki Prize. The walled town comes from a 1980 novella Murakami was never satisfied with, and he returned to it once more in The City and Its Uncertain Walls.
His most inventive early novel. Read it before The City and Its Uncertain Walls and you can watch him answer himself forty years later.
— LisanneNorwegian Wood
A nostalgic, realist story of love, loss and sexuality among students in Tokyo at the end of the 1960s, named after the Beatles song. It sold millions of copies among young Japanese readers, more than ten million in all, and turned the barely known Murakami into a public figure who was mobbed in airports. Tran Anh Hung made it into a film in 2010.
Start here if you want his voice without the strangeness. It is his one fully realist novel, and the one most readers fall for first.
— LisanneDance Dance Dance
A sequel to A Wild Sheep Chase, though it is not usually counted as part of the Trilogy of the Rat. The narrator returns to the Dolphin Hotel in Sapporo, looking for a woman who has disappeared from his life. Its title comes from a 1957 song by the Dells.
The loneliest of his early books. Read it once the trilogy has you hooked.
— LisanneSouth of the Border, West of the Sun
A short novel he wrote while living in the United States. A married man who runs a jazz bar in Tokyo is knocked off course when Shimamoto, the girl he was closest to as a child, walks back into his life. The title comes from the song “South of the Border”.
The one to read if you want to feel what his jazz-bar years were like. Quiet, grown-up and quietly devastating.
— LisanneThe Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Toru Okada's cat goes missing, then his wife, and his search leads him to the bottom of a dry well and into Japan's wartime atrocities in Manchukuo. Its three books are named after music by Rossini, Schumann and Mozart. It won the Yomiuri Prize, and Murakami has called it the turning point at which he moved from detachment to commitment.
His masterpiece. Read it when you are ready for all of him at once.
— LisanneSputnik Sweetheart
A young teacher known as K is in love with his friend Sumire, an aspiring novelist who falls for an older woman, Miu. When Sumire vanishes on a Greek island, K flies out to look for her.
Short and sad. Read it in one sitting, on a hot afternoon.
— LisanneKafka on the Shore
Two stories in alternating chapters: fifteen-year-old Kafka Tamura runs away from home, and Nakata, an old man who can talk to cats, sets out on a journey of his own, until their paths draw together. Philip Gabriel's English translation appeared in 2005, and the novel won the World Fantasy Award in 2006.
Start here instead of Norwegian Wood if you want the full strangeness from the first page.
— LisanneAfter Dark
A short novel set over a single night in Tokyo, between midnight and dawn, following a young woman reading in an all-night restaurant, her sister asleep at home, and the people who cross their paths. The New York Times named the English translation a notable book of 2007.
The shortest way into his Tokyo. Read it at night.
— Lisanne1Q84
Aomame, a fitness instructor with a secret second job, and Tengo, a maths teacher and aspiring novelist, find themselves in a version of 1984 with two moons. The title is pronounced the same as 1984 in Japanese. Published in three volumes, it was ranked the best work of fiction of Japan's Heisei era in a survey of literary experts by the Asahi Shimbun.
Save it until you are sure you love him. It is enormous, and it rewards the commitment.
— LisanneColorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
Years after it happened, Tsukuru Tazaki sets out to learn why the four close friends of his school days cut him off without a word. It became an international bestseller, although reviews were mixed.
The most direct of his later novels. Read it if a friendship of yours once ended without an explanation.
— LisanneKilling Commendatore
An unnamed portrait painter, adrift after his marriage breaks down, moves into the former mountain home of a famous artist and finds a hidden painting called Killing Commendatore, which sets strange events in motion. The English translation followed in 2018.
For readers who loved The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and want more of it: a hole in the ground, a painting and a marriage coming apart.
— LisanneThe City and Its Uncertain Walls
A man reads old dreams in the library of a town surrounded by a wall, where people are separated from their shadows. Murakami began writing it in March 2020 as a complete rewrite of his 1980 novella, the only work of his he had never allowed to be reprinted, and has said the walled town can be read as a metaphor for lockdown. In Japan more than half of the first print run of 300,000 copies sold in the first week; Philip Gabriel's English translation followed in November 2024.
Read it after Hard-Boiled Wonderland. It is a novelist in his seventies finishing a conversation with his younger self.
— LisanneThe Tale of Kaho
His newest novel, published in Japan on July 3, 2026, and for now available only in Japanese. On a blind date, Kaho, a 26-year-old picture-book author, is told she is the ugliest woman the man has ever seen, and curiosity rather than outrage draws her into a series of strange encounters, among them an anteater and a jaguar. It weaves together four stories first published in the magazine Shincho, and it is the first of his novels with a lone woman as the protagonist. The first story, “Kaho”, has appeared in English in The New Yorker.
Not in English yet. Until it is, read “Kaho” in The New Yorker and wait with the rest of us.
— LisanneWhich Haruki Murakami Books Are Connected?
Most of his novels stand alone. These are the exceptions worth knowing about before you start.
- The Trilogy of the Rat — Hear the Wind Sing, Pinball, 1973 and A Wild Sheep Chase share a narrator and his friend, the Rat. Read the entries →
- Dance Dance Dance — a sequel to A Wild Sheep Chase, although not usually counted as part of the trilogy. Read the entry →
- The walled town — Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World and The City and Its Uncertain Walls both grow out of the same 1980 novella. Read the entry →
- 1995 — the oral history Underground and the stories of after the quake are his two responses to the sarin attack and the Kobe earthquake. See the full list →
- The Tale of Kaho — expands four linked stories, the first of which is available in English as “Kaho”. Read the entry →
Where to Start with Haruki Murakami
If you want his voice without the strangeness
→ Norwegian Wood (1987).
If you want the full strangeness straight away
→ Kafka on the Shore (2002).
If you want his masterpiece
→ The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (1994–95).
If you only have an evening
→ After Dark (2004), or the stories in Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman (2006).
If you want the man behind the books
→ What I Talk About When I Talk About Running (2007), then Novelist as a Vocation (2015).
If you want more books like his
→ My guide to authors like Haruki Murakami, or the best fiction books of all time.
In What Order to Read Haruki Murakami
You do not need to read him in order. If you want a path, start with one of the two ways in above, then follow your taste: the long, strange novels, or the shorter, quieter ones.
A reading path
1. Norwegian Wood (1987) or Kafka on the Shore (2002)
2. A Wild Sheep Chase (1982)
3. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (1994–95)
4. Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (1985)
5. 1Q84 (2009–10)
6. The City and Its Uncertain Walls (2023)
If you want to read the trilogy properly
Hear the Wind Sing, Pinball, 1973, A Wild Sheep Chase, then Dance Dance Dance.
Everything Else Haruki Murakami Has Written: The Full List
The novels are only half of him. This is the rest: his short story collections, nonfiction from Underground to his running memoir, and the anthology he edited. The books I would point you to first sit at the top of each form, with where to buy them.
Open a form with the + to see every book in it.
Short story collections
5
5 books · 1993–2020
The Elephant Vanishes (1993)
Stories written between 1983 and 1990, collected in English.
Amazon, Bookshop.org and more
after the quake (2000)
Stories written in the aftermath of the 1995 Kobe earthquake.
Amazon, Bookshop.org and more
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman (2006)
24 stories written between 1980 and 2005; winner of the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award.
Amazon, Bookshop.org and more
Men Without Women (2014)
Including “Drive My Car”, filmed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi in 2021.
Amazon, Bookshop.org and more
First Person Singular (2020)
Eight stories; in English in 2021.
Amazon, Bookshop.org and more
Nonfiction and essays
5
5 books · 1997–2020
Underground (1997)
An oral history of the 1995 Tokyo subway sarin attack, built from interviews with the people caught up in it.
Amazon, Bookshop.org and more
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running (2007)
A memoir about running and writing; in English in 2008.
Amazon, Bookshop.org and more
Novelist as a Vocation (2015)
Essays on his life and work as a novelist; in English in 2022.
Amazon, Bookshop.org and more
Murakami T: The T-Shirts I Love (2020)
His T-shirt collection, with short essays; in English in 2021.
Amazon, Bookshop.org and more
Abandoning a Cat: A Personal Story (2019)
A personal essay about his father and the war; published as a book in the US in 2026.
Amazon, Bookshop.org and more
As editor
1
1 book · 2002
Birthday Stories (2002)
An anthology of stories about birthdays by writers including Raymond Carver, William Trevor and Claire Keegan, with one of his own.
Amazon, Bookshop.org and more
How Haruki Murakami Writes: Like Water Following the Land
Murakami did not write anything until he was 29. He ran a jazz bar, and he has credited music with shaping his writing even more than the books he read. That shows in the rhythm of his sentences and in how often his novels take their titles from songs: Norwegian Wood, Dance Dance Dance, South of the Border, West of the Sun.
Most of his books are narrated in the first person, by men who are, as he told NPR, not the real him but perhaps the him that might have been. Readers call the result surreal or magical realism. He does not: he has said he simply writes the stories he wants to write, and that the story moves forward naturally, like flowing water following the lay of the land.
He has also spent decades translating American fiction into Japanese, from Raymond Carver to The Great Gatsby, and he started running at 33; in 1996 he completed a 100-kilometre ultramarathon around Lake Saroma in Hokkaido. His wife, Yoko, has always been his first reader.
Frequently asked questions about Haruki Murakami's books
How many books has Haruki Murakami written?
Haruki Murakami has written sixteen novels, the most recent being The Tale of Kaho, published in Japan in July 2026. He has also published five short story collections, among them The Elephant Vanishes, after the quake, Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, Men Without Women and First Person Singular, and several works of nonfiction, including Underground, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running and Novelist as a Vocation.
What are Haruki Murakami's novels in order?
In order of first publication in Japan: Hear the Wind Sing (1979), Pinball, 1973 (1980), A Wild Sheep Chase (1982), Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (1985), Norwegian Wood (1987), Dance Dance Dance (1988), South of the Border, West of the Sun (1992), The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (1994–95), Sputnik Sweetheart (1999), Kafka on the Shore (2002), After Dark (2004), 1Q84 (2009–10), Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage (2013), Killing Commendatore (2017), The City and Its Uncertain Walls (2023), The Tale of Kaho (2026).
What is Haruki Murakami's newest book?
His newest novel is The Tale of Kaho, published in Japan on July 3, 2026. It is the first of his novels with a lone woman as the protagonist. At its Japanese release no date had been announced for an English translation; the first of the four stories it grew from, “Kaho”, is available in English in The New Yorker.
Which Haruki Murakami book should I read first?
Norwegian Wood (1987) if you want his voice in a realist story, or Kafka on the Shore (2002) if you want the full dreamlike Murakami experience from the start.
Do you need to read Haruki Murakami's books in order?
No. Most of his novels stand alone. The exceptions are the Trilogy of the Rat (Hear the Wind Sing, Pinball, 1973 and A Wild Sheep Chase) and its sequel Dance Dance Dance, and the pairing of Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World with The City and Its Uncertain Walls.
What is the Trilogy of the Rat?
The Trilogy of the Rat is Murakami's first three novels, Hear the Wind Sing (1979), Pinball, 1973 (1980) and A Wild Sheep Chase (1982), which share an unnamed narrator and his friend, known as the Rat. Dance Dance Dance (1988) is a later sequel.
Is Haruki Murakami still alive?
Yes. Haruki Murakami was born on January 12, 1949, in Kyoto, and published his sixteenth novel, The Tale of Kaho, in July 2026.
Has Haruki Murakami won the Nobel Prize?
No. He is often mentioned as a possible winner, but he has not received the Nobel Prize in Literature. Asked about it, he has laughed and said he doesn't want prizes, because they mean you're finished. He has won the Franz Kafka Prize, the Jerusalem Prize and the Princess of Asturias Award for Literature, among others.
Does Haruki Murakami write in English?
No. He writes in Japanese, and his novels reach English readers through translators including Alfred Birnbaum, Jay Rubin, Philip Gabriel and Ted Goossen. He is himself a translator of American fiction into Japanese, including F. Scott Fitzgerald and Raymond Carver.
Is Haruki Murakami's writing magical realism?
His work is often described as magical realism or surrealism, but Murakami does not see it that way. He has said he simply writes the stories he wants to write, in a style that suits him, letting the story move forward naturally.
Is Haruki Murakami married?
Yes. He married Yoko Takahashi, whom he met in Tokyo, straight out of university. She ran the Peter Cat jazz bar with him and is always the first reader of his work. The couple decided not to have children.
Which Haruki Murakami books have been made into films?
Norwegian Wood was filmed by Tran Anh Hung in 2010. His short stories inspired Tony Takitani, Lee Chang-dong's Burning (2018, from “Barn Burning”), Ryusuke Hamaguchi's Drive My Car (2021), which won the Academy Award for Best International Feature, and the animated film Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman (2022).
Footnotes
- Haruki Murakami — Wikipedia
- It was 'great relief' for Haruki Murakami to finish his latest novel — NPR
- Haruki Murakami to release first novel in three years with 'The Tale of Kaho' — The Japan Times
- 'The Tale of KAHO': New Murakami novel goes on sale — AP via CTV News
- Haruki Murakami has a new novel coming out — Literary Hub
- The City and Its Uncertain Walls — Wikipedia
- 1Q84 — Wikipedia
- Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman — Wikipedia
- Novelist as a Vocation — Wikipedia
- Haruki Murakami, Premio Princesa de Asturias de las Letras — Fundación Princesa de Asturias
Bibliography last verified 10 September 2026.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all hers.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“If there is a hard, high wall and an egg that breaks against it, no matter how right the wall or how wrong the egg, I will stand on the side of the egg.”
— Haruki Murakami, accepting the Jerusalem Prize (2009)
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