Kafka on the Shore

By: Haruki Murakami, Philip Gabriel - translator

Narrated by: Sean Barrett, Oliver Le Sueur

Brought to you by Penguin.

Kafka Tamura runs away from home at fifteen, under the shadow of his father's dark prophesy.

The aging Nakata, tracker of lost cats, who never recovered from a bizarre childhood affliction, finds his pleasantly simplified life suddenly turned upside down.

As their parallel odysseys unravel, cats converse with people; fish tumble from the sky; a ghost-like pimp deploys a Hegel-spouting girl of the night; a forest harbours soldiers apparently un-aged since World War II. There is a savage killing, but the identity of both victim and killer is a riddle - one of many which combine to create an elegant and dreamlike masterpiece.

'Wonderful... Magical and outlandish' Daily Mail

'Hypnotic, spellbinding' The Times

'Cool, fluent and addictive' Daily Telegraph

© Haruki Marakami 2005 (P) Penguin Audio 2020

Critic reviews

Wonderful... Magical and outlandish

A magnificently bewildering achievement... Brilliantly conceived, bold in its surreal scope, sexy and driven by a snappy plot... Exuberant storytelling

Cool, fluent and addictive

Hypnotic, spellbinding

Addictive... Exhilarating... A pleasure

Murakami's most addictive fix to date

Engrossing and wildly inventive

Laden with philosophical overtones and enchanting wit

Murakami's exquisitely simple prose and deft evocation of the surreal are captivating and sublime

The mysteries are never tainted by explanation, merely beautifully described, delivering a hypnotic read

Best of the best of the best of the….

No one tells stories like Murakami does it. He’s simply in a league of his own. Kafka on the Shore is no exception.

Big applause for the narrators. Quite possibly the best read book I’ve listened to.

Best Narration

The voices and acting is so good! It captures the atmosphere and suspect the narrators made the book even more interesting. This is my first audio book, when I first click on sample, I was hooked by the memorising voice of Kafka, and used my credit immediately. I think there were parts of the books that would be a little slow without the narrators, and I feel the narrators brought the characters to life (especially for the characters Nakata and Hoshino). I don't think I would be able to finish this book reading it on my own (I have very short attention span, not easy for me to stay engaged for books that are longer than around 350 pages). So thank you Audible, and the entire cast of voices! I can 'read' long books now with your help and So glad I get to experience a literary work like Kafka on the Shore!