The Elephant Vanishes

With the same deadpan mania and genius for dislocation that he brought to his internationally acclaimed novels A Wild Sheep Chase and Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World Haruki Murakami makes this collection of stories a determined assault on the normal. A man sees his favorite elephant vanish into thin air; a newlywed couple suffers attacks of hunger that drive them to hold up a McDonald's in the middle of the night; and a young woman discovers that she has become irresistible to a little green monster who burrows up through her backyard. By turns haunting and hilarious The Elephant Vanishes is further proof of Murakami's ability to cross the border between separate realities - and to come back bearing treasure. Some of the stories in this collection originally appeared in the following publications: The Magazine (Mobil Corp.): The Fall of the Roman Empire the 1881 Indian Uprising Hitler's Invasion of Poland and the Realm of the Raging Winds (in a previous translation; translated in this volume by Alfred Birnbaum) The New Yorker: TV People and The Wind-up Bird and Tuesday's Women (translated by Alfred Birnbaum) The Elephant Vanishes and Sleep (translated by Jay Rubin) and Barn Burning (in a previous translation; translated in this volume by Alfred Birnbaum) Playboy: The Second Bakery Attack (translated by Jay Rubin January 1992).