Ryū Murakami

A pulsating psycho-thriller from Ryu Murakami, author of In the Miso Soup A renaissance man for the postmodern age, Ryu Murakami—a musician, filmmaker (Tokyo Decadence), TV personality, and award-winning author—has gained a cult following in the West. His first novel, Almost Transparent Blue, won Japan’s most coveted literary prize and sold over a million copies, and his most recent psychosexual thriller, In the Miso Soup, gave readers a further taste of his incredibly agile imagination. In Piercing, Murakami, in his own unique style, explores themes of child abuse and what happens to the voiceless among us, weaving a disturbing, spare tale of two people who find each other and then are forced into hurting each other deeply because of the haunting specter of their own abuse as children.

From postmodern Renaissance man Ryu Murakami, master of the psychothriller and director of Tokyo Decadence, comes this hair-raising roller-coaster ride through the nefarious neon-lit world of Tokyo's sex industry It's just before New Year, and Frank, an American tourist, has hired Kenji to take him on a guided tour of Tokyo's nightlife. But, Frank's behaviour is so odd that Kenji begins to entertain a horrible suspicion: his client may in fact have murderous desires. Although Kenji is far from innocent himself, he unwillingly descends with Frank into an inferno of evil, from which only his sixteen-year-old girlfriend, Jun, can possibly save him.

Durata: 4 ore e 7 minuti Giappone, inizi degli anni '70. In un paese già scosso dagli effetti dei violenti moti studenteschi del '68, Ryū, Lily e il loro gruppo di amici gravitano nei dintorni della base militare americana di Yokota, a poche decine di chilometri da Tokyo, di cui frequentano alcuni dei soldati lì di stanza. Vivono una quotidianità scombinata, fatta di un uso costante e ossessionato di qualsiasi sostanza stupefacente si ritrovino a portata di mano, di sesso estremo, di piccoli furti e di qualunque altro comportamento vada a costituire un'anomalia e una sfida alle regole di un'allora ancora rigida e opprimente società giapponese. La loro appare come un'esistenza senza speranza, in cui il dolore, procurato dagli altri o autoinflitto, e altre sensazioni fisiche estreme diventano il mezzo per annullare qualsiasi altra percezione, per non sentire più nulla. Ma in questa realtà desolata, descritta in uno stile volutamente freddo e distaccato, quasi chirurgico, traspare ogni tanto dai personaggi un'innocenza fanciullesca, forse proprio quella che hanno o credono di avere perso, e alla quale in realtà vorrebbero tornare. E dalle crude descrizioni del romanzo emerge paradossalmente una asettica e terribile bellezza. Bellezza nel nonsense, nel caos, nel grottesco. Perché anche in un apparente degrado, come recita il testo, "ogni cosa irradia luce propria". ©2021 Atmosphere libri (P)2021 Atmosphere libri

The long-awaited translation of the novel behind the cult classic Japanese movie. In this gloriously over-the-top tale, Aoyama, a widower who has lived alone with his son ever since his wife died seven years before, finally decides it is time to remarry. Since Aoyama is a bit rusty when it comes to dating, a filmmaker friend proposes that, in order to attract the perfect wife, they do a casting call for a movie they don’t intend to produce. As the résumés pile up, only one of the applicants catches Aoyama’s attention—Yamasaki Asami—a striking young former ballerina with a mysterious past. Blinded by his instant and total infatuation, Aoyama is too late in discovering that she is a far cry from the innocent young woman he imagines her to be. The novel’s fast-paced, thriller conclusion doesn’t spare the reader as Yamasaki takes off her angelic mask and reveals what lies beneath. .

A surreal coming-of-age tale that establishes Ryu Murakami as one of the most inventive young writers in the world today. Abandoned at birth in adjacent train station lockers, two troubled boys spend their youth in an orphanage and with foster parents on a semi-deserted island before finally setting off for the city to find and destroy the women who first rejected them. Both are drawn to an area of freaks and hustlers called Toxitown. One becomes a bisexual rock singer, star of this exotic demimonde, while the other, a pole vaulter, seeks his revenge in the company of his girlfriend, Anemone, a model who has converted her condominium into a tropical swamp for her pet crocodile. Together and apart, their journey from a hot metal box to a stunning, savage climax is a brutal funhouse ride through the eerie landscape of late-twentieth-century Japan.

Hiromi, lycéenne de la classe moyenne, et ses trois amies dînent souvent avec des inconnus. Un jour pour se payer une topaze impériale elle accepte d'aller seule à deux rendez-vous... Récit sur une forme de prostitution propre au Japon, celles de jeunes filles qui pour se payer des produits de luxe acceptent des rendez-vous avec des inconnus par le biais de messageries téléphoniques.

In this riotous satire of urban life, generational conflict, and the battle of the sexes, Japanese best-selling sensation Ryu Murakami introduces us to six aimless young men who find themselves at war with a group of divorced, fiercely independent women. The young men are lost.The highlights of their lives are eating beef jerky and spying on a neighbor undressing. The women – the “Midori Society,” for they came together over their unusual name – lead insular lives, barely tolerating the interruption of a child or ex-husband. Taken by an inexplicable urge, one of the young men spontaneously attacks and murders a Midori, which leads to a fiery, meticulously strategized war between the two groups. Best of all, having found a sense of purpose, they’re having the time of their lives. Who knew that plotting revenge could be such fun? Murakami builds the conflict into an explosive, hilarious meditation on modern life.

Un photographe installé à Cuba est convoqué pour servir d’interprète auprès d’une compatriote japonaise suspectée par les services de l’immigration. Cette femme, Reiko, extrêmement belle, lui raconte son histoire, sa rencontre avec keiko kataoka et celui qu’elle appelle « le maître », et les relations intenses fondées sur le plaisir et la soumission, qui se noueront entre eux.

Ecstasy constituie prima parte dintr-o trilogie intitulata Monologuri despre placere, lasitate si moarte, care mai cuprinde Melancolia si Thanatos. Personajul principal, Miyashita, este un tinar asistent intr-o echipa de filmare, aflat la New York pentru a turna o campanie de promovare a unui star pop japonez Aici intilneste un cersetor neobisnuit care ii da un numar de telefon din Tokio. Intrigat, Miyashita suna, iar la celalalt capat al firului se dovedeste a fi Keiko, o femeie misterioasa care nu accepta sa-l intilneasca decit cu conditia sa ia o pastila de ecstasy in compania unei „amice de incredere”. Acesta este doar primul pas pe un traseu ce il va duce spre experiente tot mai tari, culminind in sado-masochism extrem. Autorul acestui roman are propria viziune intelectualizata si estetizanta, care merge dincolo de senzational, scotind la lumina diferitele niveluri ce conduc spre distrugerea psihica si chiar fizica, dar si senzatia intoxicanta de libertate ce vine odata ce treci de zidul rusinii si iti ingadui sa te anulezi ca persoana. Iar Miyashita este prea hipnotizat de ceea ce i se reveleaza pentru a se putea opri.

In una Tokyo in piena decadenza, giovani schiave del sesso a pagamento tentano di conservare un briciolo di dignità tra un incontro erotico e l'altro. Tutto ciò che trovano, però, è umiliazione, perversione, brutale sopraffazione fisica e il più assoluto vuoto emotivo e sentimentale. Non ci sono tracce di umanità nella capitale giapponese, e l'unica via di fuga è riposta nel passato, nel ricordo di un'infanzia spensierata che diventa una mitica età dell'oro, o nella disperata e vana ricerca del vero amore. Nelle pagine di questo libro il ritratto spietato e lucidissimo di ua degradate discesa agli inferi collettiva, sullo sfondo di una metropoli alienante che riduce le persone a semplici corpi, strappando loro l'anima.

In 1969 we were seventeen. We listened to the Beatles, the Stones, the Doors, the Velvet Underground, the Grateful Dead, Cream, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Bob Dylan. We read Rimbaud, played guitars, smoked pot, fell in love, rebelled against the establishment, protested the war in Vietnam, barricaded our high school, and produced the first rock festival in our home town-a small city in a remote southwestern corner of Japan... SIXTY-NINE is a roman à clef about coming of age during a time that left its mark on baby boomers around the world-a time when we really believed we could change the world before it changed us. By turns hilarious, cynical, frivolous, and poignant, the book is infused from start to finish with Ryu Murakami's relentless energy and optimism; it simply refuses to get tedious, preachy, or "literary" for a single moment.

Frank, un anodino turista norteamericano, contrata a un joven de veinte años como guía por los tugurios sexuales de la noche japonesa. El comportamiento de Frank durante el primero de los tres días que han de pasar juntos es tan extraño que Kenji comienza a sospechar que su cliente puede ser, en realidad, un asesino en serie que tiene aterrorizada a la ciudad. Kenji desciende involuntariamente a un infierno de violencia y maldad inconcebibles, una pesadilla de la que sólo una mujer puede ayudarle a despertar, si es que él consigue mantenerla con vida. Mezcla de Lost in Translation y El silencio de los corderos, esta inquietante novela va incrementando el suspense hasta un límite perturbador. Conocido como «el maestro del thriller psicológico», Ryū Murakami no ofrece respuestas, pero cuestiona con inmensa habilidad la relación amor/odio entre Japón y Estados Unidos, la prostitución adolescente como respuesta a la necesidad de aceptación, el vacío moral de la sociedad moderna o la soledad en un planeta multicultural. Sopa de miso obtuvo el Yomiuri Literary Award concedido por un jurado que presidió el Premio Nobel de Literatura Kenzaburo Oé.

From the Fatherland, with Love is set in an alternative, dystopian present in which the dollar has collapsed and Japan's economy has fallen along with it. The North Korean government, sensing an opportunity, sends a fleet of rebels in the first land invasion that Japan has ever faced. Japan can't cope with the surprise onslaught of Operation From the Fatherland, with Love. But the terrorist Ishihara and his band of renegade youths - once dedicated to upsetting the Japanese government - turn their deadly attention to the North Korean threat. They will not allow Fukuoka to fall without a fight. Epic in scale, From the Fatherland, with Love is laced throughout with Murakami's characteristically savage violence. It's both a satisfying thriller and a completely mad, over-the-top novel like few others.