Listen to a sample
Audition
- Author
- Ryu Murakami
- Narrator
- Kenichiro Thomson
- Publisher
- Bloomsbury Publishing
- Publish Date
- 27 November 2025
- Run Time
- 6 hours
- Format
- Audiobook
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What to expect
Since the death of his wife seven years ago, documentary maker Aoyama has not dated anyone else. Now even his teenage son, Shige, thinks that he should remarry and his best friend Yoshikawa comes up with a plan: to hold fake film auditions from which, he can choose a new bride. Of the thousands who apply, it is a beautiful ballerina, Yamasaki Asami, who captivates Aoyama. Infatuated by her fragile nature and nervous smile, he ignores his increasing sense of unease, putting aside his doubts about his new love, until it may be too late...
In Audition, Ryu Murakami delivers his most subtly disturbing novel yet, confirming him as Japan's master of the psycho-thriller.
Critics Review
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‘The prose in these passages is elegiac and affecting, but it has the sharp, visceral feel of the butcher's knife or surgeons scalpel ...a highly compulsive, one-sitting read, and Audition should add to the Renaissance Man's growing fanbase in the English speaking world'
Irvine Welsh, Guardian
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‘Sex, blood and the media (shaken violently) ... in the Bret Easton Ellis/Chuck Palahniuk mode'
Daily Telegraph
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‘A serious shocker - an inside-out romance'
Independent
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‘A haunting Japanese version of a David Lynch nightmare' (for PIERCING)
Guardian
User Reviews
No reviews yet.
Details
- Author
- Ryu Murakami
- Narrator
- Kenichiro Thomson
- Duration
- 6 hours
- Release Date
- 27 November 2025
- ISBN
- 9781526679062
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- Bloomsbury Publishing
- Genre
- Modern and contemporary fiction: literary and general
Synopsis
Bloomsbury presents Audition by Ryu Murakami, read by Kenichiro ThomsonSince the death of his wife seven years ago, documentary maker Aoyama has not dated anyone else. Now even his teenage son, Shige, thinks that he should remarry and his best friend Yoshikawa comes up with a plan: to hold fake film auditions from which, he can choose a new bride. Of the thousands who apply, it is a beautiful ballerina, Yamasaki Asami, who captivates Aoyama. Infatuated by her fragile nature and nervous smile, he ignores his increasing sense of unease, putting aside his doubts about his new love, until it may be too late... In Audition, Ryu Murakami delivers his most subtly disturbing novel yet, confirming him as Japan's master of the psycho-thriller.
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