The main character of Murakami’s new novel is a lonely 38-year-old man named Tsukuru Tazaki, who tries to make sense of his past and for that purpose sets off on a journey. He became “colorless” because there is no kanji character in his surname that denotes a color. Meanwhile, in the surnames of his four childhood friends there were such characters—“red,” “blue,” “white,” and “black.” Throughout the novel, the hero finds out the reasons why he couldn’t keep his relationships with his “colored” friends.
The title of the book can also be translated as “Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Year of Pilgrimage.”