The Tatami Galaxy

Tomihiko Morimi was born and raised in Nara Prefecture, Japan. His first novel Tower of the Sun, which he wrote while studying at Kyoto University, won the 15th Japan Fantasy Novel Award. In 2006, he received the Yamamoto Shugoro Prize for the novel The Night is Short, Walk on Girl, and in 2010, Penguin Highway was awarded the Japan SF Grand Prize. In 2023, the English edition of The Tatami Galaxy was shortlisted for the PEN Translation Prize. Several of his works have been adapted into critically acclaimed anime series and films. He still lives and works in Nara.

"This is not your ordinary campus novel or another Groundhog Day. In magical, irreverent, and often humorous prose that calls up both Murakami and Moshfegh, The Tatami Galaxy repeatedly reimagines the existential crises of a college misfit in a kaleidoscopic display of imagination, character, and genre. There is no question why this mash-up of multiverse adventure and philosophy has already become a new classic."
- Sequoia Nagamatsu, national bestselling author of How High We Go in the Dark

"The team of Tomihiko Morimi and Emily Balistrieri is unbeatable: this novel vibrates with a voice that is sharp and funny, wacky and winning. It's a perfect slice of contemporary Japanese pop: a tangle of fates, simultaneously cosmic and comic. I loved my voyage through The Tatami Galaxy." - Robin Sloan, New York Times bestselling author of Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore and Sourdough

"Rich, unusual, and surprisingly profound, The Tatami Galaxy is a gorgeous application of the fantastic to celebrate the precious parts of life that we often forget." - Ada Palmer, award-winning author of Too Like the Lightning

Tomihiko Morimi's novel of burned out gods and misanthropic students jumping between alternate dimensions as they face their regrets proves to be just as touching and hilarious as the anime series it spawned. A surprisingly timely mash-up of Catcher in the Rye and Russian Doll, The Tatami Galaxy will resonate with anyone that's found themselves too often stuck in looping isolation. - Tim Maughan, Locus Award-nominated author of Infinite Detail

"Morimi's delightful campus novel follows the quixotic adventures of an unnamed student dreaming of the perfect college experience...Light and sweet in its confection, this satisfies like a spongy piece of castella." - Publishers Weekly