First edition. Folding frontispiece map on verso of folding title-page. Signed by the author on the front free endpaper. 8vo. Original blind-stamped pink cloth in plain glassine dust-jacket and slipcase with obi. A fine copy. 618, [6]pp. Tokyo, Shinkosha, 1985.
Murakami's fourth book, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World was awarded the Tanizaki prize in 1985.
The book is a dystopian depiction of a society overcome with artificial intelligence and strictly regulated data. The story alternates between two places and storylines – in the Hard-Boiled Wonderland chapters, the protagonist is a young 'Calcutec' (or Keisanshi – a person who is used to process and encrypt data) working in a complex underground network in Tokyo, while in The End of the World chapters, the protagonist exists within an walled town where he visits a library by night to learn how to read dreams from unicorn skulls. As the two plot lines intertwine, the reader is presented with a surrealist portrait of the narrator who is caught between multiple worlds and states of mind. A masterful combination of Murakami's signature magic realism and dystopian ideas, the book was praised for its contribution to sci-fi literature.
According to an interview by The Paris Review in 2004, it was Murakami's favourite novel among his works.
