Super-Frog Saves Tokyo

A lavishly illustrated edition of Murakami’s classic short story.

'What you see with your eyes is not necessarily real'

Katagiri found a giant frog waiting for him in his apartment. It was powerfully built, standing over six feet tall on its hind legs. A skinny little man no more than five foot three, Katagiri was overwhelmed by the frog's imposing bulk.

‘Call me \"Frog,\"’ said the frog in a clear, strong voice.

Katagiri stood rooted in the doorway, unable to speak.

‘Don't be afraid. I'm not here to hurt you. Just come and close the door. Please.’

Briefcase in his right hand, grocery bag with fresh vegetables and canned salmon cradled in his left arm, Katagiri didn't dare move.

‘Please, Mr. Katagiri, hurry and close the door, and take off your shoes.’

Fully illustrated and beautifully designed, this special edition of Murakami’s celebrated short story sees the bewildered Katagiri find meaning in his humdrum life through joining forces with Frog in an effort to save Tokyo from an existential threat.

About the Author

In 1978, Haruki Murakami was 29 and running a jazz bar in downtown Tokyo. One April day, the impulse to write a novel came to him suddenly while watching a baseball game. That first novel, Hear the Wind Sing, won a new writers’ award and was published the following year. More followed, including A Wild Sheep Chase and Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, but it was Norwegian Wood, published in 1987, which turned Murakami from a writer into a phenomenon. 

About the Translator

Jay Rubin is the author of Injurious to Public Morals: Writers and the Meiji State and Making Sense of Japanese, and he edited Modern Japanese Writers for the Scribner Writers Series. He has translated into English two novels by the Japanese writer Soseki Natsume, and also Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood, The Wind-up Bird Chronicle and after the quake.

Dimensions: 13.2 x 1 x 20.4 cm