No word yet as to the US or UK publishing plans for Murakami Haruki's latest novel, 色彩を持たない多崎つくると、彼の巡礼の年, but in South Korea they're apparently very, very eager to get their hands on this: as Baek Byung-yeul reports in The Korea Times Desperate publishers fight over new Murakami novel.
Yes:
Yes:
In a country where book readership is hitting new lows amid a bad economy and explosion of mobile Internet devices, Murakami is one of the few writers capable of moving a large volume of hard copies and paperbacks.And so:
The Japanese copyright owners will decide on the company to publish the Korean version on May 20, with the goal of having the book on the shelves by July. It's difficult to project how big of a check the publishers must cut to land the rights for Colorless. One Korean publisher was said to have offered 100 million yen ($1.03 million) in advance royalty payment to Murakami for the right to publish 1Q84 three years ago and still failed to clinch it.Presumably US publisher Knopf has his rights more tightly tied up and doesn't have to worry (too much) about a bidding war; still, it'd be nice if they were already planning that translation -- in South Korea they haven't even decided on who gets to publish it and still expect it to appear by July .....