Birthday Stories (バースデイ・ストーリーズ, Bāsudei sutōrīzu = Birthday stories) is a 2002 short story anthology edited by Japanese author Haruki Murakami. Despite the theme's happy connotations most of the short stories have a dark, melancholic atmosphere.

First edition (publ. 中央公論新社)

Editions edit

Murakami selected and translated the texts, adding an original short story of his (later collected into his own Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, 2006). For the English edition at Harvill Press (using the original English-language versions of the stories), he added an introduction and selected one more story. For the Japanese reprint, he added two stories. The main editions are thus:

  • 2002: Japanese-language, 11 stories.[1]
  • 2004: English-language, 12 stories plus introduction.[2]
  • 2006: Japanese-language, 13 stories.[3]

Contents edit

The 2004 English edition of the anthology starts with an introduction by Haruki Murakami, where he speaks about his birthday and of birthdays in general (for example he mentions his visit Jack London's farm, which he did because he liked London's writings and because they share the same birthday).

It compiles:

References edit

  1. ^ OCLC 51550239
  2. ^ OCLC 56458981
  3. ^ OCLC 63208189