Haruki Murakami announces first novel release in six years

Attention, bookworms! Award-winning Japanese author Haruki Murakami is set to publish his first new novel since 2017. 

In a brief statement in Japanese, Shinchosha Publishing Co. announced that Murakami's 1,200 Japanese manuscript pages-long book will be published on April 13 with no confirmed title and plot yet. 

The novel will cost around ¥2,970 (~P1,240) per copy and is expected to be published in Japanese initially, with translations following later.

The publisher added that its digital version will be released the same day.

Murakami's last long novel was “Kishidancho-goroshi” (Killing Commendatore) published by Shinchosha in 2017.

The 74-year-old Japanese is a long-known contender for the Nobel literature prize. His short novels and fictional works are well-known around the world, including Norwegian Wood (1987), Kafka on the Shore (2002), 1Q84 (2009), and Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (1994), among many others.