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 on the Shoreis 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 & sister; and an aging simpleton calledNakata, who never recovered from a wartime affliction & now is drawn towardKafkafor reasons that, like the most basic activities of daily life, he cannot fathom. As their paths converge, & the reasons for that convergence become clear, HarukiMurakamienfolds readers in a world where cats talk, fish fall from the sky, & spirits slip out of their bodies to make love or commit murder.Kafka on the Shoredisplays one of the world’s great storytellers at the peak of his powers.°°°Understanding the NovelAfter publication,Murakami'sJapanese publisher invited readers to submit questions to its website on the meaning of the book.Murakamiresponded personally to around 1,200 of the 8,000 questions received.In an interview posted on his English-language website,Murakamiwrote: “What I concluded from this exchange was that the key to understanding the novel lies in reading it multiple times. This may sound self-serving, but it's true. I know people are busy & it depends, too, on whether they feel like doing it, but if you have the time, I suggest reading the novel more than once. Things should be clearer the second time around. I've read it, of course, dozens of times as I rewrote it, & each time I did, slowly but surely the whole started to come into sharper focus.Kafka on the Shorecontains several riddles, but there aren't any solutions provided. Instead, several of these riddles combine, & through their interaction the possibility of a solution takes shape. And the form this solution takes will be different for each reader…”