South of the Border, West of the Sun
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| South of the Border, West of the Sun | |
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| Author | Haruki Murakami |
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| Original title | 国境の南、太陽の西 Kokkyō no minami, taiyō no nishi |
| Country | Japan |
| Language | Japanese |
| Genre(s) | Novel |
| Publisher | Vintage (English Edition) |
| Publication date | 1992 |
| Published in English |
2000 |
| Media type | Print (Paperback) |
| Pages | 192 pages |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-09-944857-2 |
| Preceded by | Dance Dance Dance |
| Followed by | The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle |
South of the Border, West of the Sun (国境の南、太陽の西 Kokkyō no minami, taiyō no nishi?) is a short, melancholic novel written in 1992 by the popular Japanese novelist, Haruki Murakami. The English translation by Philip Gabriel was released in 2000.
It tells the story of Hajime, starting from his childhood in a small town in Japan. Here he meets a girl, Shimamoto, who is also an only child and suffers from polio, which causes her to drag her leg as she walks. They spend most of their time together talking about their interests in life and listening to records on Shimamoto’s stereo. They join different high schools and grow apart. They are reunited again at the age of 36, Hajime now the father of two children and owner of two successful jazz bars in the trendy part of Tokyo. With Shimamoto never giving any detail as to her own life and appearing only at random intervals, she haunts him as a constant ‘what if’. Despite his current situation, meeting Shimamoto again sets off a chain of events that eventually forces Hajime to choose between his wife and family or attempting to recapture the magic of the past.
[edit] Explanation of the novel's title
‘South of the Border’ refers to the song as sung by Nat King Cole. Because they do not understand English, Hajime and Shimamoto originally see it as a place of mystery, that something magical lies south of the border. ‘West of the Sun’ refers to a condition called hysteria siberiana which is explained by Shimamoto as what happens to farmers in the Siberian tundra – sometimes they go insane and walk westwards toward the setting sun until they collapse and die. The English title is the literal translation of the Japanese.
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