Audition

Must-Read Japanese Fiction Sale

Save 20% on the best modern fiction by Japanese authors, recommended by Powell's staff.

In this gloriously over-the-top tale, Aoyama, a widower who has lived alone with his son ever since his wife died seven years before, finally decides it is time to remarry. Since Aoyama is a bit rusty when it comes to dating, a filmmaker friend proposes that, in order to attract the perfect wife, they do a casting call for a movie they don't intend to produce. As the résumés pile up, only one of the applicants catches Aoyama's attention — Yamasaki Asami — a striking young former ballerina with a mysterious past. Blinded by his instant and total infatuation, Aoyama is too late in discovering that she is a far cry from the innocent young woman he imagines her to be. The novel's fast-paced, thriller conclusion doesn't spare the reader as Yamasaki takes off her angelic mask and reveals what lies beneath.

"A highly compulsive, one-sitting read, and Audition should add to [Murakami]'s growing fanbase in the English-speaking world." The Guardian

"The prose...is elegiac and affecting, but it has the sharp, visceral feel of the butcher's knife or surgeon's scalpel...a highly compulsive, one-sitting read." Irvine Welsh

"This dynamic novel adapted into the cult classic movie of the same name in 1999 by Murakami, winner of Japan's prestigious literary Akutagawa Prize, moves at breakneck speed and spirals out of control." Library Journal

Ryu Murakami is the best-selling author of more than a dozen novels and the winner of Japan's prestigious literary award, the Akutagawa Prize. Many of his novels have been made into movies, including Audition. He lives in Japan.

Ralph McCarthy's translations include Ryu Murakami's Audition, In the Miso Soup, Piercing, Sixty-Nine, and From The Fatherland, With Love.