NATIONAL BESTSELLER โข โA tremendous accomplishment. It does every last blessed thing a masterpiece is supposed toโand a few things we never even knew to expect.โโSan Francisco Chronicle
โBrilliant . . . an irresistibly engaging literary fantasy.โโThe Washington Post
A Kirkus Reviews Best Fiction Book of the Century
The year is 1984 and the city is Tokyo.
A young woman named Aomame follows a taxi driverโs enigmatic suggestion and begins to notice puzzling discrepancies in the world around her. She has entered, she realizes, a parallel existence, which she calls 1Q84 โโQ is for โquestion mark.โ A world that bears a question.โ Meanwhile, an aspiring writer named Tengo takes on a suspect ghostwriting project. He becomes so wrapped up with the work and its unusual author that, soon, his previously placid life begins to come unraveled.
As Aomameโs and Tengoโs narratives converge over the course of this single year, we learn of the profound and tangled connections that bind them ever closer: a beautiful, dyslexic teenage girl with a unique vision; a mysterious religious cult that instigated a shoot-out with the metropolitan police; a reclusive, wealthy dowager who runs a shelter for abused women; a hideously ugly private investigator; a mild-mannered yet ruthlessly efficient bodyguard; and a peculiarly insistent television-fee collector.
A love story, a mystery, a fantasy, a novel of self-discovery, a dystopia to rival George Orwellโsโ1Q84 is a striking feat of imagination from one of our most revered contemporary writers.