(Tokyo) Dozens of lovers of the famous Japanese writer Haruki Murakami lined up overnight from Wednesday to Thursday outside a Tokyo bookstore to get a copy of his first book published in six years.

Many copies of The City and Its Uncertain Walls, currently only available in Japanese even though the title is also written in English on the cover, were stacked on tables at the entrance to the store located in the Shinjuku district.

“I want to read it as soon as I get home.” As much as I’d like to savor every sentence, I’ll probably devour it in one go,” Shunsuke Mitsumoto, a 39-year-old fan who was among the first to pick up a copy after opening, told AFP. midnight sales.

“I’m excited by the prospect of this book taking us to yet another new world,” added Mr. Mitsumoto, a member of a Murakami reading group.

His previous novel, The Commander’s Murder, was released in 2017 in Japan and the following year in France.

The 74-year-old author had revealed before the release of his new book, through his publishing house Shinchosha, that he had written it while self-isolating during the pandemic.

He described his writing process cryptically, explaining that it was like “a ‘dream reader’ reading an ‘old dream’ in a library”.

Haruki Murakami has been consistently considered a favorite to win the Nobel Prize in Literature for years.

It appeals to “a wide range” of readers, Chikako Muramatsu, 28, who also came to buy the book, told AFP on Thursday.

“Many fans are from my parents’ generation, but there are also big Haruki fans from my generation,” she said.

Translated into fifty languages, the writer’s work, alternately disenchanted, fantastic, absurd or realistic, spans four decades and includes around ten novels as well as short stories and essays.

Among his best-known books are Chronicles of the Spring Bird (1994), Kafka on the Shore (2002) and 1Q84 (2009).

His new Drive my car was adapted for the cinema and the film won the Oscar for best foreign film in 2022.