First Person Singular (short story collection)

• "On a Stone Pillow" (石のまくらに, Ishi no Makura ni)
• "Cream" (クリーム, Kurīmu)
• "Charlie Parker Plays Bossa Nova" (チャーリー・パーカー・プレイズ・ボサノヴァ, Chārī Pākā Pureizu Bosanova)
• "With the Beatles" (ウィズ・ザ・ビートルズ, Wizu za Bītoruzu)
• "The Yakult Swallows Poetry Collection" (ヤクルト・スワローズ詩集, Yakuruto Suwarōzu Shishū)
• "Carnaval" (謝肉祭, Shanikusai)
• "Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey" (品川猿の告白, Shinagawa Saru no Kokuhaku)
• "First Person Singular" (一人称単数, Ichininshō Tansū)

The book's title story, "First Person Singular", is a new story that was previously unpublished. The other seven stories in the book were first published in the literary magazine Bungakukai between summer 2018 and winter 2020. Several stories in the book were also previously published in English in The New Yorker and Granta.[3] The book's eight stories are works of fiction. However, as in the case of "The Yakult Swallows Poetry Collection", the lines between fiction and nonfiction are occasionally blurred.[2][4]

The book was announced on 4 June 2020.[5] It was first published on 18 July 2020 by Bungeishunjū.[6] An English translation by Philip Gabriel is scheduled for publication on 6 April 2021 by Alfred A. Knopf (US)[2] and Harvill Secker (UK).[7]

In its starred review, Publishers Weekly called the collection a "testament to Murakami's talent and enduring creativity" and wrote that "Murakami's gift for evocative, opaque magical realism" stood out in the stories "Charlie Parker Plays Bossa Nova" and "Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey".[4]