Blind Willow, Sleeping Women and other stories

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman is a collection of short storiesbyJapanese author Haruki Murakami. Murakami considers this to be his first real collectionofshort stories since The Elephant Vanishes (1993) andconsidersafter the quake (2000) to be more akin to a concept album,as itsstories were designed to produce a cumulative effect. In the introductory notes to the English language editionofBlind Willow, Sleeping Woman, Murakami declares, 'I findwritingnovels a challenge, writing stories a joy. If writing novelsislike planting a forest, then writing short stories is morelikeplanting a garden.' This elegant analogy serves to give thereadersome idea of what awaits.