The final novel of the most famous author of contemporary Japanese prose—a major literary sensation of the new century, a “magnum opus of a celebrated master” and “a must-read for anyone who wants to understand Japanese culture of today,” as critics put it. The book’s action unfolds not so much in 1984 as in 1,984—in a world where some people see two moons in the sky, where the key to eternal love is Janáček’s “Little Symphony,” where after a nationwide shootout with sect members, the police were reequipped with automatic pistols instead of revolvers, and where Little People—the Little Folks—come out of the mouth of a dead goat and weave a Flying Cocoon.