number9dream : Shortlisted for the Booker Prize (2ND)

Mitchells' second novel is the Booker-shortlisted Number9Dream, an absorbing coming-of-age story of a young man searching for his missing father. Young dreamer Eiji Miyake, from remote rural Japan, thrust out on his own by his sister's death and his mother's breakdown, goes to Tokyo in pursuit of the father who abandoned him.

Stumbling around this strange, foreign city, Eiji becomes unwittingly involved with the ruthless Japanese mafia that threatens his life and with his grandfather, who entrusts to him the diary of a WWII kamikaze pilot, Eiji's own great uncle. Interspersed throughout the story are dream sequences and surreal scenes from popular video games, which puts into doubt Eiji's grasp on reality. Number9Dream is an intoxicating ride through Tokyo's dark underworlds and the even more mysterious landscapes of our collective dreams.