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Harvill Secker has acquired what is expected to be one of the big Frankfurt books, Haruki Murakami’s new novel 1Q84 for UK publication.
Harvill publishing director Liz Foley bought UK and Commonwealth rights excluding Canada for Harvill – Murakami’s longterm publisher – with Rachel Cugnoni to publish the paperback at Vintage. The agent was Karolina Sutton at Curtis Brown for Amanda Urban at ICM.
The two-volume book, over 1,000 pages long in the Japanese original, tells in alternating chapters of Tengo and Aomame, who are now looking for each other aged 30 after they were parted at the age of 10.
It became a huge bestseller when it was released in Japan in May, with its Japanese publisher Shinchosa reprinting 18 times with over two million copies now in print, according to Curtis Brown, which handles UK rights for Murakami on behalf of ICM in New York.
The book is one of number being sold at Frankfurt via ICM, whose Frankfurt bag also includes the new Bret Easton Ellis. Knopf will publish Murakami in the US. Rights have also been sold in France, Germany, Poland, Russia and Spain.