Kafka on the Shore
Fifteen-year-old Kafka Tamura runs away from home and a paternal curse and ends up sheltered in a private library on the island of Shikoku, where time and identity begin to slip. In alternating chapters, Nakata, an elderly man who lost his memory in a wartime incident and now speaks to cats, is pushed by events into a parallel journey toward the same coast. Haruki Murakami folds their storylines together with fish falling from the sky, Colonel Sanders, and the Oedipus myth, producing one of his most associative and dream-saturated novels.
Where Kafka on the Shore keeps showing up
Three of our editors' lists feature this novel.
Also by Haruki Murakami
Books in conversation with Kafka on the Shore
A few of the closest reads from our full list.
What you might want to know about Kafka on the Shore
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Fifteen-year-old Kafka Tamura runs away from home toward a coastal library. Elsewhere, an elderly man with brain damage talks to cats and follows a strange call west. Their two stories curve toward each other.
Kafka on the Shore alternates between two storylines that converge symbolically rather than literally. The dreamlike events, talking cats, and unresolved metaphors are intentional. Most Murakami readers find it accessible at the sentence level even when the meaning is elusive.
Yes. Kafka on the Shore won the World Fantasy Award in 2006 and was a New York Times Top 10 Book of the Year for 2005. It is one of Murakami's most internationally celebrated novels.
Kafka on the Shore was written by Haruki Murakami, published in 2002.
Kafka on the Shore is a standalone novel by Haruki Murakami, not part of a series.
Kafka on the Shore is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
