New ‘Infinite Jest’ 30th anniversary edition comes with foreword from Japanese Breakfast’s Michelle Zauner

A new 30th anniversary edition of Infinite Jest is on the way, and it features a foreword from Japanese Breakfast’s Michelle Zauner.

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The classic David Foster Wallace novel is set to be getting a re-release for its upcoming 30th anniversary.

Although nothing has yet been confirmed yet, the new edition has appeared for pre-order on Hachette Book Group’s website, and it appears that it features a contribution from the Japanese Breakfast singer.

Arriving in February 2026, the page seems to suggest that Zauner has penned the foreword for the latest edition of the book.

It’s fitting for the artist, as she has spoken about her deep connection with the novel multiple times in the past, and suggested that it is partly responsible for her getting into writing.

Speaking to The Fader earlier this year, she also said it was a source of inspiration for her latest Japanese Breakfast album, ‘For Melancholy Brunettes (and sad women)’.

“I started the year in 2023 with Infinite Jest, because I had a lot of time off in 2023 and was getting ready to write a new record and was inspired by things that would typically classify as falling under the ‘incel canon’ umbrella,” she shared. “I guess I just wanted to understand this group of people, and why exactly they gravitate to certain types of art.”

Going on to praise it as “an extraordinary novel”, she continued: “I wouldn’t compare my album to Infinite Jest, but the one thing it has in common in my mind are stories dealing with graphic, intense moments, human struggle, and loneliness.

“I was drawn to [the] quite difficult writing, and that’s what I wanted to do in my own work too. I really wanted to make something that maybe wasn’t for everybody, not intentionally, but I just wanted to make what I wanted to make.”

The new 30th anniversary edition of Infinite Jest is set for release via Back Bay Books on February 3 – visit here to pre-order.

Zauner shared her own book, the memoir Crying In H Mart, back in 2021. In it, the artist explored how the death of her mother forced a reckoning with her Korean-American identity.

She confirmed in 2021 that there would be a film adaptation of her book, and later added that Will Sharpe would be on hand to direct. Earlier this year, she announced that the feature film adaptation had been put “on pause” for the foreseeable future.

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