Kafka on the Shore

is a 2002 novel by Japanese author Haruki Murakami. Its 2005 English translation was among "The 10 Best Books of 2005" from The New York Times and received the World Fantasy Award for 2006. The book tells the stories of the young Kafka Tamura, a bookish 15-year-old boy who runs away from his Oedipal curse, and Satoru Nakata, an old, disabled man with the uncanny ability to talk to cats. The book incorporates themes of music as a communicative conduit, metaphysics, dreams, fate, the subconscious. After the release of the book, Murakami allowed for questions about the novel to be sent in, and responded to many of them. The novel was generally well-received, with positive reviews from John Updike and The New York Times. Title The title of the book, according to Alan Cheuse of NPR, is suggestive and mysterious to Japanese readers — Franz Kafka is categorized as a Western writer who is well-known by Americans but is not so in Japan. He compares it to titles such as Genji on the Hudson. Psychoanalyst Hayao Kawai saw special meaning in the name Kafka, as its Japanese version,, could be a combination of (, meaning 'possible' or 'good') and (, meaning the opposite), thus giving the book liminality. Plot summary Comprising two distinct but interrelated plots, the narrative runs back and forth between both plots, taking up each plotline in alternating chapters.