Birthday Stories
Birthday Stories (バースデイ・ストーリーズ, Bāsudei sutōrīzu = Birthday stories) is a 2002 short story anthology edited by Japanese author Haruki Murakami. Despite the theme's happy connotations most of the short stories have a dark, melancholic atmosphere.
Editions[]
Murakami selected and translated the texts, adding an original short story of his (later collected into his own Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, 2006). For the English edition at Harvill Press (using the original English-language versions of the stories), he added an introduction and selected one more story. For the Japanese reprint, he added two stories. The main editions are thus:
- 2002: Japanese-language, 11 stories.[1]
- 2004: English-language, 12 stories plus introduction.[2]
- 2006: Japanese-language, 13 stories.[3]
Contents[]
The 2004 English edition of the anthology starts with an introduction by Haruki Murakami, where he speaks about his birthday and of birthdays in general (for example he mentions his visit Jack London's farm, which he did because he liked London's writings and because they share the same birthday).
It compiles:
- ("Introduction : My birthday, your birthday", by Haruki Murakami — added to English ed. only)
- "" (by David Foster Wallace)
- "" (by )
- "The Birthday Cake" (by Daniel Lyons)
- "" (by William Trevor)
- "" (by Denis Johnson)
- "" (by Russell Banks)
- "" (by Ethan Canin)
- "" (by Andrea Lee)
- "" (by Raymond Carver)
- "" (by Paul Theroux)
- "" (by Claire Keegan) — (added to 2004 English hardback edition, 2006 Japanese edition and 2006 English paperback edition.)
- "" (by Lewis Robinson) — (added to 2006 Japanese edition and English paperback only)
- "Birthday Girl" (by Haruki Murakami)
References[]
- Works by Haruki Murakami
- 2002 short story collections
- Fiction anthologies
- Anthology book stubs
- Japanese literature stubs