Murakami for beginners - 象の消滅 - The Elephant Vanishes

Japanese Language Reading
1

I just found this book and I think it’s a great introduction to Murakami for someone who is just starting to read Japanese: This book:

象の消滅

The title in English is The Elephant Vanishes. It’s a collection of short stories by Haruki Murakami.

What’s great about this book is that you get a couple of paragraphs in English, then the same paragraphs in Japanese, then the same paragrapahs in English again, with a few words underlined, and then the underlined words translated and explained in Japanese. I guess it’s meant as a book for Japanese people to understand how Murakami is translated to English. For me as a learner, it’s great to read a few paragraphs in English and then go directly to Japanese. Having the English text fresh in my mind means that I can easily understand the Japanese text, even if I don’t understand every word or every grammar point.

I hope this is useful for someone else!

9 Likes
2

Chiming in to mention that this book (as well as another book in the same series) is on sale for the next 17 days.

1 Like