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 by the popular Japanese novelist, Haruki Murakami, in 1992 while he was a visiting scholar at the Princeton University in the United States. The English translation by Philip Gabriel was released in 1999. Part of the title, 'South of the Border,' refers to the song as sung by Nat King Cole.. However, there is no evidence that N...
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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 by the popular Japanese novelist, Haruki Murakami, in 1992 while he was a visiting scholar at the Princeton University in the United States. The English translation by Philip Gabriel was released in 1999. Part of the title, 'South of the Border,' refers to the song as sung by Nat King Cole.. However, there is no evidence that Nat King Cole actually ever recorded this song. The other half refers to an Inuit syndrom called Piblokto or Arctic (or Siberian) hysteria.
The novel 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...
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