Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (世界の終りとハードボイルド・ワンダーランド, Sekai no Owari to Hādo-Boirudo Wandārando) is a 1985 novel by Japanese author Haruki Murakami. It was awarded the Tanizaki Prize in 1985. The English translation by Alfred Birnbaum was released in 1991. A new translation by Jay Rubin was released December 2024. A strange and dreamlike novel, its chapters alternate between two narratives—"Hard-Boiled Wonderland" (the cyberpunk, science fiction part) and "The End of the World" (the surreal, virtual fantasy part). Respectively, the stories follow a "shuffler" who processes data in a futuristic, government-controlled Tokyo, and a "dreamreader" in a strange, walled city where he must extract memories to give to a librarian, as he gradually forfeits his own memories and shadow.
