1Q84

1Q84 is the long "comprehensive novel" Haruki Murakami released after seven years of silence. The simplified Chinese edition, translated by Shi Xiaowei and published by Nanhai Publishing Company, is divided into three volumes: BOOK 1 (April–June), BOOK 2 (July–September), and BOOK 3 (October–December). The story begins in Tokyo in 1984: Aomame is a fitness instructor who also does a certain kind of special work; Tengo is a cram-school math teacher who writes fiction on the side. The two held hands in an elementary-school classroom at the age of ten, then went their separate ways, living alone for twenty years. Tengo is asked to rewrite a novel by a girl named Fuka-Eri, Air Chrysalis, and thereby touches the religious group called "Sakigake," the "Little People" who can make "air chrysalises," and a world with two moons in the sky. After a certain operation, Aomame realizes the world has been quietly rewritten; she names this year "1Q84," from the Q in Question, and begins to live under a new name and new rules. In BOOK 3, the ugly but sharp "messenger" Ushikawa joins the narrative, forming a trio of interwoven threads—Aomame, Tengo, and Ushikawa. Set against real events such as the Aum Shinrikyo incident, student movements, and domestic violence, the novel blends suspense, love, and social critique, telling the story of a lonely man and woman searching for each other in an alienated world and deciding to save each other.