Coin Locker Babies

(Paperback)

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Description

A cult cyberpunk masterpiece, and Ryu Murakami's most famous novel.

Two babies are left in a Tokyo station coin locker and survive against the odds, but their lives are forever tainted by this inauspicious start. As they grow up, they join the ranks of Toxitown: a district of addicts, freaks and prostitutes. While one becomes a bisexual rock star searching for his mother, the other one, an athlete, seeks revenge on the woman who abandoned him. This savage and stunning story unfolds in a surrealistic whirl of violence.

Reviews

'Ably encapsulates the fin de siecle cultural detonation of Japanese youth... Snyder's agile translation preserves much of the shock, beauty, and pathos in this apocalyptic minisaga of troubled times' - Kirkus

'Ryu Murakami is known for the sex-drugs-and-violence style of his fiction and Coin Locker Babies has it all... A cyberpunk coming-of-age tale' - Japan Times

Author Bio

Born in 1952 in Nagasaki prefecture, Ryu Murakami is the enfant terrible of contemporary Japanese literature. Awarded the prestigious Akutagawa Prize in 1976 for his first book, he has gone on to explore with cinematic intensity the themes of violence and technology in contemporary Japanese society. His novels include Conin Locker Babies, Sixty-Nine, From the Fatherland, with Love. Murakami is also a screenwriter and director; among his films are Tokyo Decadence, Audition and Because of You.