In The Miso Soup has sold 10,000 copies in hardback in the UK to date, and 14,000 paperbacks

'Equally compelling and disturbing ... a dark psycho-thriller' Daily Mail 'Piercing is a Japanese extension of David Lynch's world: surreal, sexually anguished, highly neurotic, both knowing and naive' Guardian 'Each time a new book by Ryu Murakami is published, the people at the Japanese Tourist Board must hang their heads in despair ... darkly witty' Daily Telegraph 'There are echoes here of Edgar Allan Poe and Dostoyevsky - Murakami shares their fascination with the darkest layer of the soul, and the appalling isolation of the criminal. Creepy and gripping' Kate Saunders, The Times

Renaissance man for the modern age, Ryu Murakami has played drums for a rock group, made movies and hosted a TV talk show. His first novel, Almost Transparent Blue, written while he was still a student, was awarded Japan's most coveted literary prize and went on to sell over a million copies. His most recent novel to appear in English was In the Miso Soup, published by Bloomsbury in 2005.