Like a hallucination, the childhood love of bar owner Hajima reappears after decades, unfathomable and shrouded in mystery. Always on rainy evenings, Shimamoto appears like a seductive hint from another world, upending the life of the diligent businessman and family man. "South of the Border, West of the Sun" tells with great magic of the intrusion of demonic forces into a life - and does not shy away from any taboos. When it was published as "Dangerous Liaisons" in the English translation, the dispute over the language of the novel and its portrayal of sexuality led to the dissolution of the "Literary Quartet." Now, for the first time, it has been directly translated from the original Japanese into German: Ursula Gräfe, who has long become the German voice of Murakami, uncovers hidden layers and reveals a novel that we.