Haruki Murakami to release new novel “The Tale of Kaho”

Japanese writer Haruki Murakami will publish his new book "The Tale of Kaho" on July 3, his publisher Shinchosha announced on Thursday, according to EFE.

This will be his first novel with a female protagonist and will be based on short stories already published featuring this character, CE Report quotes AGERPRES.

At the center of the novel—Murakami’s first book in the past three years following The City and Its Uncertain Walls—is Kaho, a picture book author around whom “strange things begin to happen one day.”

Shinchosha stated that the novel, which will have 352 pages and cost 2,860 yen (approximately €15), is based on the short story "Kaho" published in 2024, which Murakami read that same year before an audience at Waseda University in Japan.

Born in Kyoto in 1949, Murakami—one of the most prominent figures in contemporary Japanese literature—has since published three short stories about Kaho in the magazine Shincho. These works will be released in July as a “complete new novel,” according to the publisher, after being “revised and expanded.”

Murakami’s well-known books include Norwegian Wood (1987), Sputnik Sweetheart (1999), and Kafka on the Shore (2002).

His name is often listed among the favorites for the Nobel Prize in Literature. He has also received major distinctions such as the Franz Kafka Prize, the Yomiuri Prize for Literature, and the Princess of Asturias Award for Literature in 2023.