Theodore Griffin

The world only began to experience notable economic growth in the late 19th century. Even then, it was the reserve of heavily industrialised nations. Thanks to the mercantilist policies of Europe’s empires, this meant that territories like the Bengal weren’t merely prevented from industrialising, but deindustrialised.

Haruki Murakami’s The City and Its Uncertain Walls, its English translation published last November, plunges the reader into a kind of metaphysical vertigo that never reaches a concluding synthesis.