Coin Locker Babies

Book excerpt: 'A cyberpunk coming-of-age tale' Japan Times 'Encapsulates the fin de siècle cultural detonation of Japanese youth' Kirkus Two babies are left in a Tokyo station coin locker and survive against the odds, but their lives are forever tainted by this inauspicious start. Raised amidst the outcasts and misfits of Toxitown, they carve out vastly different paths: one as a bisexual rock star on a desperate search for his mother, the other as an athlete consumed by revenge against the woman who left him behind. When their twisted journeys start to intertwine, this savage and stunning story plunges headlong into a surrealistic whirl of violence. Part of the Pushkin Press Classics series: timeless storytelling by icons of literature, hand-picked from around the globe. Translated by Stephen Snyder Born in 1952 in Nagasaki prefecture, Ryu Murakami is the enfant terrible of contemporary Japanese literature. Awarded the prestigious Akutagawa Prize in 1976 for his first book, he has gone on to explore with cinematic intensity the themes of violence and technology in contemporary Japanese society. Murakami is also a screenwriter and director; among his films are Tokyo Decadence, Auditionand Because of You. His novels Sixty-Nine, Popular Hits of the Showa Era and From the Fatherland, with Love are also available from Pushkin Press.