1Q84: 2,230,000 copies sold in Japan alone!

A Japanese visitor to this blog has sent me the following e-mail:
"Hi from Japan! Today, on Dec. 4 was announced on the TV news that 1Q84 has been voted The book of the year 2009. Some 2,230,000 have been sold so far."

And mind it: English translation of 1Q84 has yet to come to the market. Haruki Murakami has millions of fans outside Japan, and they're keenly waiting to buy the book in the English version.

Is 1Q84 going to create a new sales record in literature?

Waiting for 1Q84's English translation

No release date for English translation of Haruki Murakami's 1Q84 has been set yet. But I wish I could get it right now. Yes, I'm hugely obsessed with Murakami's work. I like his passive, almost ignored protagonists, and his deft handling of contemporary themes with his sharp statement and humour. Murakami is no doubt a great thinking writer, and I take pleasure in noting that he has an ever-growing following of readers across the world.

Since I have to wait for a while for the book, I satisfy my appetite by reading all kinds of news and views about the novel.

According to informed critics, 1Q84 is Haruki Murakami's magnum opus.

Murakami's new novel after five years

1Q84
An exciting news for literary tasters: Haruki Murakami, one of the greatest living novelists, has published this morning a new novel titled 1Q84 after five years. The book - Japanese version, no translation yet -is so much in demand that its publisher Shinchosh was forced to increase its first print run by 100,000 to 480,000 copies amid a flood of advance orders.

The novel has 1066 pages, and is published in two volumes.

..1Q84 is classic Murakami, It is described as a "complex and surreal narrative" that "shifts back and forth between tales of two characters, a man and a woman, who are searching for each other".

The novel "explores social and emotional issues such as cult religions, violence, family ties and love."