Sputnik Sweetheart is the 12th of world-renowned Japanese writer Haruki Murakami’s novels. A spinning, mysterious tale centered upon the unrequited love of three individuals truly finds form as an investigation into the nature of longing in the human soul. The narrator, a 25 year-old teacher who we only know as “K”, Sumire, a self-condemned struggling female writer two years his junior and Miu, a sophisticated, successful businesswoman who are all thrown into a tragic menage-a-trois, which seems not only destined to fail, but may in fact spell doom.
Sputnik Sweetheart follows the lives of the three protagonists from their disenchanted lives in Tokyo to the haunting disappearance of one of them on a remote Greek isle off the coast of Rhodes. Incorporating love, sexuality, youth, pain and confusion into the lives of three intensely human, damaged souls, Murakami twists a tale that inherently becomes an investigation into our own lives.
As with all Murakami novels, Sputnik Sweetheart is a superbly interwoven modern love story/mystery expertly integrating pop culture into an exploration of the human soul. Filled with references to music, art, travel and the profound loneliness of the individual, Murakami captures the imagination of the reader with almost universal insight, raw emotion and honesty. Part Tom Robbins, Kinky Friedman & Balzac, Sputnik Sweetheart unravels with the speed of a film and the sincerity of a biography.
To North American readers his work remains somewhat obscure, however Murakami’s fame reached epic proportions in East Asia during the 1980’s. During this time he closed his jazz bar “Peter Cat” in downtown Tokyo & began to pursue a career as a full time novelist. Following the publication of Norweigan Wood in 1987, the title a reference to the Beatles song, young Japanese readers became frenzied for his work, propelling him almost overnight toward pop star status. Subsequently, he decided to flee his native Japan and began traveling around Europe, finally deciding to settle in the US. He taught at Princeton and Tufts for a few years before choosing to return to Japan with his wife Yoko.
Since his return to Japan he has continued his meteoric rise toward international fame with the publications of Dance, Dance, Dance (1988); South of the Border, West of the Sun (1992); The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (1995) & Underground (1998), his first non-fiction novel, which documents the Sarin gas attack on a Tokyo subway by Aum Shinrikyo in 1995.
Several of Haruki Murakami’s novels are available here in Memphis. Some of his more notable titles including Norweigan Wood; South of the Border, West of the Sun; Sputnik Sweetheart & his latest translated novel, Kafka on the Shore are available at Davis-Kidd Books. Each book is superbly translated, earlier works by Alfred Birnbaum, later works by Jay Rubin.
A Complete Bibliography of Haruki Murakami’s Works Available in English:
Hear the Windsong (1979)
Pinball, 1973 (1980)
A Wild Sheep Chase (1982)
Hard-Boiled Wonderland & The End of the World (1985)
Norweigan Wood (1987)
Dance, Dance, Dance (1988)
South of the Border, West of the Sun (1992)
The Elephant Vanishes (1993)
The Wind-up Bird Chronicle (1995)
Undergound (1998)
Sputnik Sweetheart (1999)
After the Quake (2000)
Kafka on the Shore (2002) English translated since 2005
After Dark (2004) English translation available in 2007
Tokyo Kitnashu (2005) English translation not yet available
