Sputnik Sweetheart

By: Haruki Murakami, Philip Gabriel - translator

Narrated by: Adam Sims

Brought to you by Penguin.

Sumire is in love with a woman seventeen years her senior. But whereas Miu is glamorous and successful, Sumire is an aspiring writer who dresses in an oversized second-hand coat and heavy boots like a character in a Kerouac novel.

Sumire spends hours on the phone talking to her best friend K about the big questions in life: what is sexual desire, and should she ever tell Miu how she feels for her? Meanwhile K wonders whether he should confess his own unrequited love for Sumire.

Then, a desperate Miu calls from a small Greek island: Sumire has mysteriously vanished...

© Haruki Murakami 2001 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

Critic reviews

Sputnik Sweetheart has touched me deeper and pushed me further than anything I've read in a long time (Julie Myerson)

How does Murakami manage to make poetry while writing of contemporary life and emotions? I am weak-kneed with admiration

A beautiful novel, as light as a feather, and yet enduringly sad... a captivating book from one of the world's most interesting authors

Murakami has been compared to everyone from Raymond Carver to Raymond Chandler - which should tell you only one thing: he's unique

Confirms Murakami as a master of his craft... Out of this world

Grabs you from its opening lines. . . . [Murakami's] never written anything more openly emotional.

Murakami is a genius.

Murakami has an unmatched gift for turning psychological metaphors into uncanny narratives. -

An agonizing, sweet story about the power and the pain of love. . . . Immensely deepened by perfect little images that leave much to be filled in by the reader's heart or eye.

[Murakami belongs] in the topmost rank of writers of international stature.