num_pages: 505
description: Kafka on the Shore, a tour de force of metaphysical reality, is powered by two remarkable characters: a teenage boy, Kafka Tamura, who runs away from home either to escape a gruesome oedipal prophecy or to search for his long-missing mother and sister; and an aging simpleton called Nakata, who never recovered from a wartime affliction and now is drawn toward Kafka for reasons that, like the most basic activities of daily life, he cannot fathom. Their odyssey, as mysterious to them as it is to us, is enriched throughout by vivid accomplices and mesmerizing events. Cats and people carry on conversations, a ghostlike pimp employs a Hegel-quoting prostitute, a forest harbors soldiers apparently unaged since World War II, and rainstorms of fish (and worse) fall from the sky. There is a brutal murder, with the identity of both victim and perpetrator a riddle—yet this, along with everything else, is eventually answered, just as the entwined destinies of Kafka and Nakata are gradually revealed, with one escaping his fate entirely and the other given a fresh start on his own.
language: English
title: Kafka on the Shore
titlecomplete: Kafka on the Shore
characters: Hoshino, Sakura, Miss Saeki, Kafka Tamura, Satoru Nakata, Oshima
genres: Fiction, Magical Realism, Asia, Japan, Japanese Literature, Literature, Classics, Novels, Fantasy, Literary Fiction
ratings_count: 445430
places: Japan, Takamatsu
series: 海辺のカフカ
awards: awardedAt: 1136102400000
name: World Fantasy Award
category: Novel, awardedAt: 1104566400000
name: Los Angeles Times Book Prize
category: Fiction, awardedAt: 1136102400000
name: Independent Foreign Fiction Prize
category: Longlist, awardedAt: 1136102400000
name: PEN Translation Prize
category: Philip Gabriel, awardedAt: 1104566400000
name: Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis
category: Preis der Jugendjury, awardedAt: 1262332800000
name: Tähtifantasia Award, awardedAt: 1451635200000
name: Βραβείο Βιβλίου Public
category: Μεταφρασμένο μυθιστόρημα της χρονιάς (Translator: Αργυρώ Μαντόγλου), awardedAt: 1230796800000
name: Premio San Clemente Rosalía-Abanca
category: Lingua estranxeira
publisher: The Harvill Press