After Dark (anglicky) – Murakami Haruki (2008)

Midnight approaches in an almost empty all-night diner. Mari sips coffee and reads when a young musician intrudes on her solitude. Both have missed the last train home. He plans to rehearse with his jazz band all night, while Mari is content to read, smoke and drink coffee until dawn. They discover that they know each other through Eri, Mari’s beautiful sister, and the musician leaves, promising to return before morning. Soon Mari is approached by a girl from the Alphaville Hotel, where a Chinese prostitute has been injured by a client. Knowing that Mari speaks fluent Chinese, the girl asks for her help. Meanwhile, Eri lies at home in a deep, heavy sleep that is “too perfect, too pure” to be normal. She has remained in this soporific state for two months, becoming a modern sleeping beauty. But at midnight, as the digital clock displays 00:00, a faint electrical crackle can be heard and a hint of life flickers across the television screen, although it is unplugged. In this surreal novel, Haruki Murakami turns the familiar into something strange after midnight and takes the reader beyond the twilight. Are these strange nocturnal events real, or merely a trick of the night?