Background

Birthday Girl is a short story written by the Japanese writer Haruki Murakami

Haruki Murakami

is a Japanese writer and translator. His works of fiction and non-fiction have garnered him critical acclaim and numerous awards, including the Franz Kafka Prize and Jerusalem Prize among others.He is considered an important figure in postmodern literature...

 in 2004. Murakami was putting together an anthology of short stories on the theme of birthdays. He chose to write a story solely for the anthology. It is a typical Murakami tale with its Kafkaesque limbo reality.

Plot

A girl who works as a waitress gets her birthday wish granted on her twentieth birthday - a wish that takes the rest of her life to realize.