In 1969 we were seventeen. We listened to the Beatles, the Stones, the Doors, the Velvet Underground, the Grateful Dead, Cream, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Bob Dylan. We read Rimbaud, played guitars, smoked pot, fell in love, rebelled against the establishment, protested the war in Vietnam, barricaded our high school, and produced the first rock festival in our home town - a small city in a remote southwestern corner of Japan. "69" is a roman de clef about coming of age during a time that left its mark on baby boomers around the world - a time when we really believed we could change the world before it changed us. By turns hilarious, cynical, frivolous, and poignant, the book is infused from start to finish with Ryu Murakami's relentless energy and optimism; and it simply refuses to get tedious, preach, or "literary" for a single moment.

Translated by: Ralph McCarthy