25 october: release of Haruki Murakami's '1Q84' english version

The Race to Translate Haruki Murakami's '1Q84' - Japan Real Time - WSJ

“1Q84″ presents a twist on George Orwell’s “1984,” which Mr. Murakami frequently references. (In Japanese, the word for “nine” is pronounced “kyu”). Rather than an Orwellian dystopian future, Mr. Murakami paints an alternate past. In his characteristically stark, unadorned prose, Mr. Murakami tells an epic love story set in Tokyo in 1984. Aomame, a young female hired assassin, and Tengo, an aspiring novelist, are separately drawn into a parallel reality where some people have two souls, two moons hang in the sky and mysterious “little people” wield power.
“1Q84″ shares traits with Mr. Murakami’s “The Wind-up Bird Chronicle” and “Kafka on the Shore,” including his trademark melding of the mundane and the fantastical, and his obsession with cats and music. But the new work stands apart in its epic scope and authoritative voice; unlike most of his novels, it’s narrated entirely in the third person.