Kafka on the Shore (unabridged)

Kafka on the Shore
by Haruki Murakami

Read by Sean Barrett and Oliver Le Sueur

UNABRIDGED

Kafka on the Shore is the latest novel by Japan’s leading literary novelist, who developed a world-wide cult reputation with Norwegian Wood. In Kafka on the Shore, Murakami continues with his remarkable combination of profound insight into humankind with a totally credible touch of the fantastical – a unique tour de force.

The teenager Kafka Tamura goes on the run and holes up in a strange library in a small country town. Concurrently, Nakata, a finder of lost cats, goes on a puzzling odyssey across Japan. Only gradually do we find how these stories interweave.

Want to know more about Murakami? Download the Murakami Podcast: High Quality (MP3, 9.1 MB) / Low Quality (MP3, 4.5 MB).

15 CDs • Running Time: c.19 hours • ISBN: 9-62634-405-9 • Catalogue no: NAX40512 • RRP: £49.00

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File size: 388.1 MB
Catalogue no: NAX40512D
Price: £35.00

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Review by Sue Arnold, The Guardian

Kafka Tamura, a precocious fifteen-year-old from Tokyo with oedipal tendencies, runs away from home, meets a transsexual librarian on Shikoku, Japan’s smallest island, reads a lot of books, sleeps with two women (his sister? His mother?), finds his true self in a magical forest. Meanwhile, sixtysomething, brain-damaged Nakata murders a man who kills cats to make flutes from their souls, legs it to the same Shikoku library and finds his true self in a motel room. I think. Murakami isn’t good with loose ends but he is brilliant with talking cats, mixed-up adolescents, quirky relationships and stories requiring off-the-wall imagination. I wouldn’t have lasted the course without Sean Barrett, whose Nakata will wring your heart. You either love or loathe Japan’s favourite novelist. I’m still undecided.