The City and Its Uncertain Walls

The breathtaking new novel about the boundaries between worlds and individuals, from the internationally bestselling author of 1Q84 and Norwegian Wood.

A novel about the porous boundary between the real and shadow worlds. After losing his beloved as a teenager, the narrator finds his way to the Town, a mysterious place where he finds work as a Dream Reader in the library.

Back in the real world as an adult he tries to recapture his time in the Town by taking a job as a librarian in a remote location in Fukushima province, where he takes over the job from a ghost. When a boy, M, who visits the library every day, vanishes, the boundaries between spatial and temporal realities, and between individuals, seems to have been breached. A novel about the barriers, imaginary and real, that we put up between and within ourselves.