TOKYO (AP) — A new book by Haruki Murakami will mark the first time a full-length novel by the Japanese author features a female main character and her pursuit of finding a way out of a bizarre world.
“The Tale of KAHO,” which is scheduled to be released July 3 in print and digital formats, centers on a 26-year-old picture book author named Kaho.
The new novel is Murakami’s first in three years. His previous novel, “The City and Its Uncertain Walls,” is a story of a male protagonist searching for love, loss and the boundaries between real and subconscious worlds.
Kaho is the first lone, woman protagonist featured in a full-length novel by Murakami, Shinchosha Publishing Co. said Thursday in a statement.
Initially, the novel started as a short story titled, "Kaho," which Murakami rehearsed at a book reading event two years ago at Waseda University, his alma mater in Tokyo, with Mieko Kawakami, a renowned female author and fan of his work. The story was published in the June 2024 edition of the monthly Shincho magazine.
The character Kaho, who has average looks and intelligence, is a curious person. One day she dines with a man who tells her, "I've never seen one as ugly as you.” Not outraged but baffled, curious Kaho tries to find out his hidden message.
Soon she starts encountering bizarre things in her life.
“I must find the way out of this world,” a brief promotional teaser released by the publisher says. “Murakami world is in full force.”
Murakami has since released three subsequent “Kaho” series stories in Shincho magazine, most recently in the March edition. They include “The Anteater of Musashi-sakai,“ “Kaho and the Termite Queen” and “Kaho and the Motorcycle Man, and Scarlett Johansson.”
The English version of the first piece, translated by Philip Gabriel, was published in The New Yorker magazine in 2024.
Murakami brings the four parts together and gives them new life in the 352-page new novel, the publisher said.
FILE - Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami poses for media during a press conference on the university's new international house of literature, The Haruki Murakami Library, opening at the Waseda University in Tokyo, on Sept. 22, 2021. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, File)
FILE - Japanese author Haruki Murakami attends a meeting with Norway's Crown Princess Mette-Marit during the Norwegian Literature Festival in Lillehammer, Norway, Thursday, June 5, 2025. (Cornelius Poppe/NTB Scanpix via AP, File)
Tensions in the standoff between the U.S. and Iran over the Strait of Hormuz intensified Friday after U.S. President Donald Trump said he ordered the U.S. military to “shoot and kill” Iranian small boats in the strait, while Iran pushed back on Trump's claim there was a leadership rift in the Islamic Republic.
“In Iran there are no ‘hardliners’ or ‘moderates’. We are all Iranians and revolutionaries,” Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian and Speaker of Parliament Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf wrote in almost identical social media statements.
Since the killing of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in the first strike of the war on Feb. 28, it has been unclear who in Iran wields ultimate authority over its collection of civilian figures and powerful generals who appear to be in charge.
Trump also said Thursday evening that Israel and Lebanon agreed to extend a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah by three weeks after talks at the White House.
The standoff between the U.S. and Iran has effectively choked off nearly all exports through the Strait of Hormuz, where 20% of the world’s traded oil passes in peacetime, with no end in sight.
Here is the latest:
European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said peace negotiations between the United States and Iran are at risk of forging a “weaker” agreement than one struck a decade ago.
“If the talks are only about the nuclear (issue) and there are no nuclear experts around the table, then we will end up with an agreement that is weaker than the JCPoA was,” Kallas said Friday in Cyprus, referring to a 2015 deal struck during the Obama administration that Trump pulled the U.S. out of in 2018.
Kallas said if negotiators do not table Iran’s “missile programs, their support to proxies, and also hybrid and cyber activities in Europe” there is a possibility “we will end up with a more dangerous Iran.”
A medical aid convoy left Turkey headed for Iran, an official told Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency on Friday.
The six trucks departed Van in eastern Turkey to pass through the Gurbulak border crossing, Van Health Director Muhammed Tosun said.
“The materials include medicines and medical supplies,” Tosun said.
“We previously sent three trucks. With today’s trucks, a total of nine trucks of aid materials will have been delivered to our Iranian colleagues to serve their citizens,” he said.
Zainab, the sister of Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil, who was killed on Wednesday in an Israeli airstrike, hugs her helmet as she mourns over her coffin in the village of Baysariyeh, southern Lebanon, Thursday, April 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
Mourners carry the coffin of Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil, who was killed Wednesday in an Israeli airstrike, during her funeral procession in the village of Baysariyeh in southern Lebanon on Thursday, April 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Michel Issa, right, speaks as Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Lebanese Ambassador to the U.S. Nada Hamadeh Moawad, listen during a meeting between the ambassadors of Israel and Lebanon in the Oval Office at the White House, Thursday, April 23, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
From left, Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Lebanese Ambassador to the U.S. Nada Hamadeh Moawad, listen to President Donald Trump speak in the Oval Office at the White House, Thursday, April 23, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
A container ship is seen in the Strait of Hormuz off the coast of Qeshm Island, Iran, Saturday, April 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Asghar Besharati)
