is a

roman à clef ''Roman à clef'' (, anglicised as ), French for ''novel with a key'', is a novel about real-life events that is overlaid with a façade of fiction. The fictitious names in the novel represent real people, and the "key" is the relationship ...

novel by

Ryu Murakami is a Japanese masculine given name and family name meaning "dragon", "noble", "prosperous", or "flow". Ryū, Ryu, or ryu may also refer to: Fiction * ''Ryū'' (manga), a 1986 series by Masao Yajima and Akira Oze * , a 1919 book by Ryūnosuke Aku ...

. It was published first in 1987. It takes place in 1969, and tells the story of some

high school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

students coming of age in an obscure

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

ese city who try to mimic the

counter-culture A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores.Eric Donald Hirsch. ''The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy''. Hou ...

movements taking place in

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

and other parts of the world.

Synopsis

Thirty-two-year-old narrator Kensuke Yazaki takes a nostalgic look back at the year 1969, when he was an ambitious and enthusiastic seventeen-year-old, living in

Sasebo is a core city located in Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan. It is also the second largest city in Nagasaki Prefecture, after its capital, Nagasaki. On 1 June 2019, the city had an estimated population of 247,739 and a population density of 581 persons p ...

, in

Nagasaki is the capital and the largest city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. It became the sole port used for trade with the Portuguese and Dutch during the 16th through 19th centuries. The Hidden Christian Sites in the ...

, where he gets into antics with his equally ambitious and enthusiastic best friends, Iwase and Adama. Their priorities are girls, cinema, music, literature, pop culture, organizing a

school festival A school is an educational institution designed to provide learning spaces and learning environments for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is sometimes compulso ...

to be called "The Morning Erection Festival", besting teachers and enemies, and finding a way to change the world somehow.

Film, TV or theatrical adaptations

The 2004 film '' 69'' is based on Murakami's novel.

Release details

*1987, Japan, ? (), Pub date 1 August 1987, hardback (First edition) *1993, Europe ?, Kodansha Europe (), Pub date 1 September 1993, hardback (Eng. trans.) *1995, Europe ?, Kodansha Europe (), Pub date ? March 1995, paperback (Eng. trans.) *2006, Europe ?, Kodansha Europe (), Pub date 7 February 2006, paperback (Eng. trans.) *2004, Germany, Suhrkamp Verlag (), Pub date 30 September 2004, paperback

External links

"69" review
''Japanzine'' By Zack Davisson
"69" review
By ''Upcoming4.me'' 1987 Japanese novels Novels by Ryū Murakami Fiction set in 1969 Japanese novels adapted into films Roman à clef novels Novels set in Nagasaki Prefecture {{1980s-novel-stub