Get a FREE Books of the Moment  sampler!
Before you go...
Check Out These
21 Books You’ve Been Meaning to Read
See the List
Best Seller
Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
Read An Excerpt

Look Inside | Reading Guide

Read An Excerpt
Read An Excerpt

Kafka on the Shore

By Haruki Murakami

By Haruki Murakami

By Haruki Murakami

By Haruki Murakami

By Haruki Murakami
Read by Sean Barrett and Oliver Le Sueur

By Haruki Murakami
Read by Sean Barrett and Oliver Le Sueur

Part of Vintage International

Part of Vintage International

Paperback $16.00

Jan 03, 2006 | 480 Pages

Ebook $11.99

Jan 18, 2005 | 448 Pages

Audiobook Download $27.50

Aug 06, 2013 | 1149 Minutes

All Formats
+
    Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
    Paperback
    Jan 03, 2006 | 480 Pages
    See All Formats (2) +

    Paperback
    –

    • Paperback $16.00

      Jan 03, 2006 | 480 Pages

    Ebook
    +

    • Ebook $11.99

      Jan 18, 2005 | 448 Pages

    Audio
    +

    Buy the Audiobook Download:

    About Kafka on the Shore

    Kafka on the Shore 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.

    As their paths converge, and the reasons for that convergence become clear, Haruki Murakami enfolds readers in a world where cats talk, fish fall from the sky, and spirits slip out of their bodies to make love or commit murder. Kafka on the Shore displays one of the world’s great storytellers at the peak of his powers.

    About Kafka on the Shore

    Kafka on the Shore 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.

    As their paths converge, and the reasons for that convergence become clear, Haruki Murakami enfolds readers in a world where cats talk, fish fall from the sky, and spirits slip out of their bodies to make love or commit murder. Kafka on the Shore displays one of the world’s great storytellers at the peak of his powers.


    From the Trade Paperback edition.

    About Kafka on the Shore

    With Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami gives us a novel every bit as ambitious and expansive as The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, which has been acclaimed both here and around the world for its uncommon ambition and achievement, and whose still-growing popularity suggests that it will be read and admired for decades to come.

    This magnificent new novel has a similarly extraordinary scope and the same capacity to amaze, entertain, and bewitch the reader. A tour de force of metaphysical reality, it 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.

    Extravagant in its accomplishment, Kafka on the Shore displays one of the world’s truly great storytellers at the height of his powers.

    Read An Excerpt

    Reading Guide

    Read An Excerpt

    Reading Guide

    Read An Excerpt

    Reading Guide

    Also by Haruki Murakami

    Killing Commendatore
    Men Without Women
    Absolutely on Music
    Hear the Wind Sing
    Pinball, 1973
    See all books by Haruki Murakami

    Also by Haruki Murakami

    Killing Commendatore
    Men Without Women
    Absolutely on Music
    Hear the Wind Sing
    Pinball, 1973
    See all books by Haruki Murakami

    Also by Haruki Murakami

    Killing Commendatore
    Men Without Women
    Absolutely on Music
    Hear the Wind Sing
    Pinball, 1973
    See all books by Haruki Murakami

    About Haruki Murakami

    HARUKI MURAKAMI was born in Kyoto in 1949 and now lives near Tokyo. His work has been translated into more than fifty languages, and the most recent of his many international honors is the Hans Christian Andersen Literature Award, whose… More about Haruki Murakami

    About Haruki Murakami

    HARUKI MURAKAMI was born in Kyoto in 1949 and now lives near Tokyo. His work has been translated into more than fifty languages, and the most recent of his many international honors is the Hans Christian Andersen Literature Award, whose… More about Haruki Murakami

    About Haruki Murakami

    HARUKI MURAKAMI was born in Kyoto in 1949 and now lives near Tokyo. His work has been translated into more than fifty languages, and the most recent of his many international honors is the Hans Christian Andersen Literature Award, whose… More about Haruki Murakami

    Product Details

    Category: Literary Fiction | Contemporary Fantasy

    Paperback | $16.00
    Published by Vintage
    Jan 03, 2006 | 480 Pages | 5-3/16 x 8 | ISBN 9781400079278

    Category: Literary Fiction | Contemporary Fantasy

    Ebook | $11.99
    Published by Vintage
    Jan 18, 2005 | 448 Pages | 6-1/4 x 9-1/4 | ISBN 9781400044818

    Category: Literary Fiction | Contemporary Fantasy | Audiobooks

    Audiobook Download | $27.50
    Published by Random House Audio
    Aug 06, 2013 | 1149 Minutes | ISBN 9780804166553

    People Who Read Kafka on the Shore Also Read

    ‹ ›
    Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass
    The Narrow Road to the Deep North
    Shadow of the Wind
    The Hunting Gun
    The Tale of the Heike
    A Tale for the Time Being
    Paprika
    Rising Sun
    The Night Circus
    The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
    The Lake
    Kokoro
    Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
    SHOGUN
    Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories
    The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
    The Bridge Over the River Kwai
    In the Miso Soup
    The Tale of Genji
    Pattern Recognition
    Out
    Cloud of Sparrows
    Ring
    Lost in a Good Book
    When the Emperor Was Divine
    The Tattoo Murder Case
    Across the Nightingale Floor
    Number9Dream
    JAPANESE TALES
    The Ruined Map
    A Gesture Life
    House of Leaves
    SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE
    Memoirs of a Geisha
    The Unconsoled
    The Master and Margarita
    Snow Country
    Skinny Legs and All
    One Hundred Years of Solitude
    Snow Falling on Cedars
    The Makioka Sisters
    The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea
    The Tale of Genji
    Masks

    Inspired by Your Browsing History

    Praise

    “As powerful as The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. . . . Reading Murakami . . . is a striking experience in consciousness expansion.” –The Chicago Tribune

    “An insistently metaphysical mind-bender.”
    –The New Yorker

    “If he has not achieved that status already, Haruki Murakami is on course to becoming the most widely read Japanese writer outside Japan, past or present.”
    –New York Times

    Awards

    ALA Notable Adult Books SELECTION 2006

    Looking for More Great Reads?
    Download our Spring Fiction Sampler Now
    Back to Top

    Visit other sites in the Penguin Random House Network

    Books for Better Living

    Inspiration for the best you

    Brightly

    Raise kids who love to read
    TASTE img

    TASTE

    An online magazine for today’s home cook

    Signature

    Making Well-Read Sense of the World

    LitFlash

    The eBooks you want at the lowest prices

    Read it Forward

    Read it first. Pass it on!
    First to Read

    First to Read

    Early access to Penguin Random House’s hottest new titles
    Unbound Worlds

    Unbound Worlds

    Exploring the science fiction and fantasy universe