Murakami's latest short story collection, First Person Singular, has been published in several European countries. The new translations include German, Norwegian, Italian, Dutch, and Danish versions.
The first two, which appeared in January, were the German translation by Ursula Gräfe (Dumont) and the Norwegian version by Ika Kaminka (Pax). The Norwegian cover seems to be inspired by the story of the Shinagawa monkey.
March brought three more translations, all of them featuring monkeys on their covers, albeit each quite different in terms of color and style. The Italian version came out
on March 9. The translator is Antonietta Pastore and the
publisher Einaudi. The Danish translation appeared just a few days
ago, on March 26, in Mette Holm's translation from Klim. Mette says that the first reviews are good.
The translator of the Dutch version, Elbrich Fennema (Atlas Contact), decided to promote the book herself; with the help of a grant from the Dutch Literature Foundation, she produced a book trailer. The purpose was to explore new ways of reaching readers during the pandemic. Here is the link to the trailer on Vimeo and the front and back covers of the Dutch version.
The Vimeo page also gives a link to Elbrich's webpage, where one can find information about her writing, translations, etc. as well as her reactions to reviews (they can be read using Google Translate!).
The English version, translated by Philip Gabriel, is due to come out on April 6.
