A novel told in two alternating strands. Fifteen-year-old Kafka Tamura runs away from his home in Tokyo to escape his father and a troubling prophecy, and he takes refuge in a quiet private library in a distant town. Meanwhile an elderly man named Nakata, who cannot read but can speak with cats, sets out on a puzzling journey of his own. The two paths slowly draw closer. Blending the ordinary with the fantastic, the book explores identity, fate, memory and the search for a place to belong.
Quotes
It's hard to tell the difference between sea and sky, between voyager and sea. Between reality and the workings of the heart.
Colonel Sanders in Kafka on the Shore
People soon get tired of things that aren't boring, but not of what is boring.