Waiting on Wednesday: 1Q84

 "Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted at Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases.

I'm still a novice when it comes to Haruki Murakami, having only read four of his books and none of his most famous ones. However I was still excited to learn that an English translation of 1Q84 will be released later this year, as Murakami has quickly become one of my favourite authors. I don't know much about this book but that's the way Murakami wanted it so I'm going to stick to a blurb which explains the title of the novel.

Prior to the 1Q84's publication, Murakami stated that he would not reveal anything about the book, following criticism that leaks had diminished his previous books' novelty. 1Q84 was noted for heavy advance orders despite this secrecy. The title is a play on the Japanese pronunciation of the year 1984. The letter Q and the Japanese number 9 (typically romanized as "kyū," but as "kew" on the book's Japanese cover) are homophones, which are often used in Japanese wordplay. This is a reference to George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four.

This book originally was published in 2008 in Japanese, so the translation has been awhile in progress. Unlike in Japan where 1Q84 was released in three volumes, in North America the novel will be published by Knopf in a single volume, released on October 25th, 2011. The book will be approximately 1,000 pages, so it will definitely be enough Murakami to dig into for awhile!

Have you ever had to deal with a long wait for a book you're anticipating to come out in your language? What are you waiting on this Wednesday?