Yes, you read the title of this post correctly, the eagerly-awaited new novel from Haruki Murakami is set for release in Japan on Friday (that’s tomorrow!) will have an initial hardback print run of half a million copies!

The new book’s title is only available in Japanese for now and is titled, “Shikisai wo Motanai Tazaki Tsukuru to Kare no Junrei no Toshi”. An unofficial translation in English gives it the title, “Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki and the Year of his Pilgrimage”.

The new novel is expected to hit bookstores on Friday, April 12th, with major outlets planning to open early at 8:00 am, while at least one large seller in Tokyo flung open its doors at midnight on Thursday (see photo down below).

Publishing house Bungeishunju Ltd. said, “Online book giant AMAZON JAPAN had received more than 20,000 pre-orders for the new novel as of Saturday, faster than any other book by Murakami.”

Half a million copies is the largest initial hardback print run for the Japanese publisher, one of the country’s biggest.

It will be Murakami’s first work in three years after the final installment of “1Q84″. That book, which can be read as “1984″ in Japanese, proved to be a worldwide phenomenon. As a side note we should mention that Chip Kidd designed the cover for the Knopf edition of 1Q84.

One last thing, we apologize for not mentioning the designer’s name of the cover to this new book. At the time of this writing we didn’t have that information.

Source: PanARMENIAN.Net