Originally published in 2002 as 海辺のカフカ (Umibe no Kafuka)Winner of the 2006 World Fantasy AwardOne of The 10 Best Books of 2005 (New York Times)Kafka Tamuraruns away from home at fifteen, under the shadow of his father's dark prophesy. The agingNakata, tracker of lost cats, who never recovered from a bizarre childhood affliction, finds his pleasantly simplified life suddenly turned upside down. As their parallel odysseys unravel, cats converse with people; fish tumble from the sky; a ghost-like pimp deploys a Hegel-spouting girl of the night; a forest harbours soldiers apparently un-aged since World War II. There is a savage killing, but the identity of both victim & killer is a riddle - one of many which combine to create an elegant & dreamlike masterpiece.°°°“For readers just discovering Japanese alpha novelistHaruki Murakamithrough his bestsellingKafka on the Shore, good news: there's a lot more where that came from. For more than 20 years, Murakami has charted the same strange interworld, the same killing field where everyday angst collides with supernatural dread.Kafka on the Shoreis both Murakami's career topper, synthesizing two decades' sprawling themes & obsessions, & just another riff on loneliness, eroticism, & isolation.Kafka on the Shoreretells the story ofSophocles'Oedipus Rex; that is, if "retells" can be understood to involve radical rewriting, willful misinterpretation, & some extravagant punning. A schizophrenic teen runaway calledKafka Tamuraplays the cursed Oedipus, on the lam after the terrible pronouncement that one day he will sleep with both his mother & his sister and murder his father. The length of modern-day Japan, as well as various alternate times & dimensions, is not enough distance to moveKafkabeyond his fate. But the dreamlike unfolding of these actions, &Murakami'srefusal to distinguish between fact and fancy, lend the novel a delicious torpor.”—The Georgia Straight