Japan town fuming over Murakami fiction portrayal

A small Japanese town was fuming at best-selling novelist Haruki Murakami on Wednesday after a new story appeared to suggest its residents habitually throw lit cigarettes from car windows.

The remote town of Nakatonbetsu on Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido says it will demand an explanation from the publisher over how it allowed such a description to pass over an editor’s desk.