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The Elephant Vanishes 象の消滅 (Zō no shōmetsu)
A collection of 17 of Murakami’s short stories written from 1980 to 1991.
Published in Japanese in 2005.
Translated into English by Jay Rubin in 1993.
This collection features the following highlights:
“A Slow Boat to China,” was one of the first short stories Murakami ever wrote.
“The Wind-Up Bird and Tuesday’s Women” was adapted to become the first chapter of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.
The story “Barn Burning” is the basis for the major motion picture called Burning.
“On seeing the 100 percent Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning,” also ran in the anthology New Japanese Voices: The Best contemporary Fiction from Japan.
Other stories include: “The Second Bakery Attack,” “The Kangaroo Communiqué,” “Sleep,” “The Fall of the Roman Empire,” “The 1881 Indian Uprising, Hitler’s Invasion of Poland, and the Realm of Raging Winds,” “Lederhosen,” “The Little Green Monster,” “Family Affair,” “A Window,” “TV People,” “The Dancing Dwarf,” “The Last Lawn of the Afernoon,” “The Silence,” and “The Elephant Vanishes.”