The two intended to take all the bread they could from a bakery by force. After drinking and eating all of it, the man recounts to his wife a time he and his friend “robbed” a bakery ten years ago. Īfter being disturbed by a strange phone-call from an unknown woman demanding ten minutes of his time, a man goes in search of his wife's missing cat and meets a girl in a neighbor's garden.Ī recently married couple in their late twenties lie in bed, famished they have little in their refrigerator: a six-pack of beer and some cookies. Note: This story was subsequently updated as the first chapter of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. Synopsis 'The Wind-up Bird and Tuesday's Women' 'The Fall of the Roman Empire, the 1881 Indian Uprising, Hitler's Invasion of Poland, and the Realm of Raging Winds' 'On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning' 2.6 'The Fall of the Roman Empire, the 1881 Indian Uprising, Hitler's Invasion of Poland, and the Realm of Raging Winds'.2.4 'On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning'.2.1 'The Wind-up Bird and Tuesday's Women'.The title for the book is derived from the final story in the collection.

The stories mesh normality with surrealism, and focus on painful issues involving loss, destruction, confusion and loneliness. Stylistically and thematically, the collection aligns with Murakami's previous work.

Several of the stories had already appeared (often with alternate translations) in the magazines The New Yorker, Playboy, and The Magazine (Mobil Corp.) before this compilation was published. The contents of this compilation were selected by Gary Fisketjon (Murakami's editor at Knopf) and first published in English translation in 1993 (its Japanese counterpart was released later in 2005). The stories were written between 19, and published in Japan in various magazines, then collections. The Elephant Vanishes ( 象の消滅, Zō no shōmetsu) is a collection of 17 short stories by Japanese author Haruki Murakami.

The little green monster murakami