---
product_id: 64571457
title: "Kafka on the Shore"
price: "NZ$24"
currency: NZD
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 8
url: https://www.desertcart.nz/products/64571457-kafka-on-the-shore
store_origin: NZ
region: New Zealand
---

# Iconic magical realism storytelling Top 100 bestseller in Historical Fiction Vintage edition with proper binding Kafka on the Shore

**Price:** NZ$24
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

## Summary

> 📖 Unlock the surreal — where reality blurs and stories live forever.

## Quick Answers

- **What is this?** Kafka on the Shore
- **How much does it cost?** NZ$24 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.nz](https://www.desertcart.nz/products/64571457-kafka-on-the-shore)

## Best For

- Customers looking for quality international products

## Why This Product

- Free international shipping included
- Worldwide delivery with tracking
- 15-day hassle-free returns

## Key Features

- • **Timeless Vintage Charm:** Own a beautifully bound classic that stands out on your shelf.
- • **Dive into Magical Realism:** Experience Murakami’s surreal world where cats talk and fish fall from the sky.
- • **Perfect for the Avid Reader:** A must-have for professionals craving a literary escape beyond the ordinary.
- • **Thought-Provoking Narrative:** Explore deep themes of memory, destiny, and identity that spark endless conversations.
- • **Critically Acclaimed Bestseller:** Join 21,000+ readers who rated it 4.4 stars and counting.

## Overview

Kafka on the Shore is a vintage, properly bound edition of Haruki Murakami’s acclaimed novel blending magical realism with a gripping dual narrative. Ranked in the top 100 historical fiction books, it captivates over 21,000 readers with its surreal plot and profound themes, making it a must-read for discerning book lovers.

## Description

VINTAGE, A great option for a Book Lover Great one for reading Comes with Proper Binding

Review: Magical Realism at its best, one of the best works of Murakami - This was Haruki Murakami’s second book I read (after ‘Norwegian Wood’), due to its wide popularity. Murakami is one of the pioneers in ‘Magical Realism’ genre, and this is evident in this book too. This is one of the best works of Murakami, an extremely engrossing tale of two central characters – a teenage boy, Kafka Tamura, who has run away from his home in search of his long-missing mother and sister or to escape an Oedipal prophecy. Another central character is named Nakata, who, in his own words, is ‘not so bright’. Both these characters, living their individual lives, their destinies are somehow entwined. The book has brilliant instances of magical realism such as – - Cats having conversations with people - Colonel Sanders (of the KFC fame), appearing out of nowhere, employing a prostitute. - World War II soldiers who have not aged - Fish falling from the sky - A murder where the identity of both the victim and murderer is a mystery - A small stone so heavy, that a person can barely lift it - Concepts of reincarnation and destiny Murakami’s forte lies in using bizarre instances, simple but soul touching dialogues, interesting & quirky characters, to weave a magical tale. This novel is no different and is an absolutely crazy ride. If you’re picking this book, you should expect all this, and more. What I love about Murakami, is that the story almost always takes you beyond the normal bounds of human reality, into some sort of an alternate world where metaphysical magic happens! For people who are new to Murakami’s style of writing, they might find a lot of events really random. And yes, they are random at times. Not denying that bit. But maybe, that’s the whole charm of his writing, where certain things happen which are totally unexpected. ‘Kafka on the Shore’ is a story about a fifteen-year-old teenager, who runs away from home. He decides to leave his home in order to find his lost mother and sister, but mostly, as it’s described in the book, to get away from his father. The father figure has been shown in a negative light, but not much into detail. His fate lands him to a distant town, where he meets a gay friend, who helps him through a big part of his journey. He also meets two exceptional women, who could have been his mother or sister, and ends up copulating with them. This is one phase of the story. Simultaneously, Murakami introduces you to a simpleton sexagenarian, Nakata, who has kind of lost his reasoning abilities in an incident which in some way is related to the extra-terrestrial. Nakata, although not so bright, has a weird gift of talking to cats and making fish fall from the sky. Somehow, Kafka and Nakata’s destinies are interconnected, and the whole book is about their journey. The book is extremely engrossing and entertaining. Now, as it usually happens with Murakami’s work, some of the questions have been left unanswered and some events have an open-ended interpretation. So, if you’re someone who likes straightforward stories, you might be disappointed on these fronts. Favorite Quotes from the book: - “Each person feels pain in his own way, each has his own scars.” - “If you think God’s there, He is. If you don’t, He isn’t. And if that’s what God’s like, I wouldn’t worry about it.” - “Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart.” - “If you remember me, then I don't care if everyone else forgets.” - “Lost opportunities, lost possibilities, feelings we can never get back. That's part of what it means to be alive. But inside our heads - at least that's where I imagine it - there's a little room where we store those memories. A room like the stacks in this library. And to understand the workings of our own heart we have to keep on making new reference cards. We have to dust things off every once in a while, let in fresh air, change the water in the flower vases. In other words, you'll live forever in your own private library.” - “Silence, I discover, is something you can actually hear.” - “Listen up - there's no war that will end all wars.” - “Every one of us is losing something precious to us. Lost opportunities, lost possibilities, feelings we can never get back again. That’s part of what it means to be alive.” - “Closing your eyes isn't going to change anything. Nothing's going to disappear just because you can't see what's going on. In fact, things will even be worse the next time you open your eyes. That's the kind of world we live in. Keep your eyes wide open. Only a coward closes his eyes. Closing your eyes and plugging up your ears won't make time stand still.” - “Chance encounters are what keep us going.” - “Being with her I feel a pain, like a frozen knife stuck in my chest. An awful pain, but the funny thing is I'm thankful for it. It's like that frozen pain and my very existence are one.” - “It's hard to tell the difference between sea and sky, between voyager and sea. Between reality and the workings of the heart.”
Review: Interesting & thought-provoking; could be too surreal for some - Kafka on the Shore is your typical Murakami book -- it is surreal and has magical or supernatural elements strewn about the book, has hidden messages not all of which is clear even at the end, but is extremely interesting overall. The book is centred around two main characters -- Kafka Tamura who runs away from home to escape a prophecy and searches for his mother and sister, and Nakata, an old simple man who had a life-altering experience when young. and can now speak to cats. During their journey, we come across an imaginary person who is Kafka's advisor, fish that rain from the skies, a man who kills cats and stores their hearts in his refrigerator, a middle-aged rich woman who evokes Kafka's Oedipal complex, a transgendered gay man, alien abduction, soldiers lost in a forest who never get old, and several similar elements. The title itself refers to a painting and a song besides referencing the lead protagonist. The book explores the fine line between imagination and reality through the book, and the distinction often blurs for the reader. The explanations for many of the occurrences in the story are never completely clear and Murakami allows the reader to make her own interpretations. As he himself puts it, the book contains several riddles, but there aren't any solutions provided. The form the solutions take will be different for each reader. It's one of the books where the journey is infinitely more interesting than the destination and plenty of wonderful thought-provoking quotes enhance that enjoyment. Murakami is not for everyone, however. Some readers may be put off by the large extent of surrealism and even for those that enjoy it, parts of the story are left unexplained which can be somewhat unsatisfactory. However, most of his books are page-turners, delightful to read and provides the reader ample opportunity to contemplate the hidden meanings and nuances and Kafka on the Shore is no different. And that's what makes this a wonderful book to read! Pros: Extremely interesting and page-turning, thought-provoking Cons: Some readers may find this too surreal, no clear explanation for some aspects of the story

## Features

- VINTAGE, A great option for a Book Lover
- Great one for reading
- Comes with Proper Binding

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Best Sellers Rank | #4,006 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #68 in Historical Fiction (Books) #166 in Contemporary Fiction (Books) |
| Customer Reviews | 4.4 out of 5 stars 21,140 Reviews |

## Images

![Kafka on the Shore - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71TrwxcX6sL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Magical Realism at its best, one of the best works of Murakami
*by A***H on 7 April 2019*

This was Haruki Murakami’s second book I read (after ‘Norwegian Wood’), due to its wide popularity. Murakami is one of the pioneers in ‘Magical Realism’ genre, and this is evident in this book too. This is one of the best works of Murakami, an extremely engrossing tale of two central characters – a teenage boy, Kafka Tamura, who has run away from his home in search of his long-missing mother and sister or to escape an Oedipal prophecy. Another central character is named Nakata, who, in his own words, is ‘not so bright’. Both these characters, living their individual lives, their destinies are somehow entwined. The book has brilliant instances of magical realism such as – - Cats having conversations with people - Colonel Sanders (of the KFC fame), appearing out of nowhere, employing a prostitute. - World War II soldiers who have not aged - Fish falling from the sky - A murder where the identity of both the victim and murderer is a mystery - A small stone so heavy, that a person can barely lift it - Concepts of reincarnation and destiny Murakami’s forte lies in using bizarre instances, simple but soul touching dialogues, interesting & quirky characters, to weave a magical tale. This novel is no different and is an absolutely crazy ride. If you’re picking this book, you should expect all this, and more. What I love about Murakami, is that the story almost always takes you beyond the normal bounds of human reality, into some sort of an alternate world where metaphysical magic happens! For people who are new to Murakami’s style of writing, they might find a lot of events really random. And yes, they are random at times. Not denying that bit. But maybe, that’s the whole charm of his writing, where certain things happen which are totally unexpected. ‘Kafka on the Shore’ is a story about a fifteen-year-old teenager, who runs away from home. He decides to leave his home in order to find his lost mother and sister, but mostly, as it’s described in the book, to get away from his father. The father figure has been shown in a negative light, but not much into detail. His fate lands him to a distant town, where he meets a gay friend, who helps him through a big part of his journey. He also meets two exceptional women, who could have been his mother or sister, and ends up copulating with them. This is one phase of the story. Simultaneously, Murakami introduces you to a simpleton sexagenarian, Nakata, who has kind of lost his reasoning abilities in an incident which in some way is related to the extra-terrestrial. Nakata, although not so bright, has a weird gift of talking to cats and making fish fall from the sky. Somehow, Kafka and Nakata’s destinies are interconnected, and the whole book is about their journey. The book is extremely engrossing and entertaining. Now, as it usually happens with Murakami’s work, some of the questions have been left unanswered and some events have an open-ended interpretation. So, if you’re someone who likes straightforward stories, you might be disappointed on these fronts. Favorite Quotes from the book: - “Each person feels pain in his own way, each has his own scars.” - “If you think God’s there, He is. If you don’t, He isn’t. And if that’s what God’s like, I wouldn’t worry about it.” - “Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart.” - “If you remember me, then I don't care if everyone else forgets.” - “Lost opportunities, lost possibilities, feelings we can never get back. That's part of what it means to be alive. But inside our heads - at least that's where I imagine it - there's a little room where we store those memories. A room like the stacks in this library. And to understand the workings of our own heart we have to keep on making new reference cards. We have to dust things off every once in a while, let in fresh air, change the water in the flower vases. In other words, you'll live forever in your own private library.” - “Silence, I discover, is something you can actually hear.” - “Listen up - there's no war that will end all wars.” - “Every one of us is losing something precious to us. Lost opportunities, lost possibilities, feelings we can never get back again. That’s part of what it means to be alive.” - “Closing your eyes isn't going to change anything. Nothing's going to disappear just because you can't see what's going on. In fact, things will even be worse the next time you open your eyes. That's the kind of world we live in. Keep your eyes wide open. Only a coward closes his eyes. Closing your eyes and plugging up your ears won't make time stand still.” - “Chance encounters are what keep us going.” - “Being with her I feel a pain, like a frozen knife stuck in my chest. An awful pain, but the funny thing is I'm thankful for it. It's like that frozen pain and my very existence are one.” - “It's hard to tell the difference between sea and sky, between voyager and sea. Between reality and the workings of the heart.”

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Interesting & thought-provoking; could be too surreal for some
*by A***N on 10 August 2020*

Kafka on the Shore is your typical Murakami book -- it is surreal and has magical or supernatural elements strewn about the book, has hidden messages not all of which is clear even at the end, but is extremely interesting overall. The book is centred around two main characters -- Kafka Tamura who runs away from home to escape a prophecy and searches for his mother and sister, and Nakata, an old simple man who had a life-altering experience when young. and can now speak to cats. During their journey, we come across an imaginary person who is Kafka's advisor, fish that rain from the skies, a man who kills cats and stores their hearts in his refrigerator, a middle-aged rich woman who evokes Kafka's Oedipal complex, a transgendered gay man, alien abduction, soldiers lost in a forest who never get old, and several similar elements. The title itself refers to a painting and a song besides referencing the lead protagonist. The book explores the fine line between imagination and reality through the book, and the distinction often blurs for the reader. The explanations for many of the occurrences in the story are never completely clear and Murakami allows the reader to make her own interpretations. As he himself puts it, the book contains several riddles, but there aren't any solutions provided. The form the solutions take will be different for each reader. It's one of the books where the journey is infinitely more interesting than the destination and plenty of wonderful thought-provoking quotes enhance that enjoyment. Murakami is not for everyone, however. Some readers may be put off by the large extent of surrealism and even for those that enjoy it, parts of the story are left unexplained which can be somewhat unsatisfactory. However, most of his books are page-turners, delightful to read and provides the reader ample opportunity to contemplate the hidden meanings and nuances and Kafka on the Shore is no different. And that's what makes this a wonderful book to read! Pros: Extremely interesting and page-turning, thought-provoking Cons: Some readers may find this too surreal, no clear explanation for some aspects of the story

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Murakami's Brilliance at DISPLAY
*by P***R on 19 April 2019*

”Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn’t something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn’t get in, and walk through it, step by step. There’s no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverized bones. That’s the kind of sandstorm you need to imagine.” His given name isn’t Kafka Tamura, but when he decides to strike out on his own he gave himself a name that more properly fit the version of himself he wanted to become. Kafka means crow in Czech. A name of significance to an inner self. His father is a world famous sculptor, a man admired for the strength of emotion his creations inspire. He also brought his son into existence (no hocus pocus here...the old fashioned way) molding him as if he were inanimate clay, infusing him with imagination, and in the end like a demented soothsayer, warping him with an Oedipus curse. Kill the father. Sex the sister. Seduce the mother. ”It’s all a question of imagination. Our responsibility begins with the power to imagine. It’s just like Yeats said: In dreams begin responsibilities. Flip this around and you could say that where there’s no power to imagine, no responsibility can arise.” Kafka is fifteen, not going on sixteen, but barely fifteen. He is on a quest to find himself. to lose himself. to escape himself. to avoid the prophecy. Like an arrow shot by a sure hand he lands at a private library managed by a beautiful woman named Miss Saeki. ”I look for the fifteen-year-old girl in her and find her right away. She’s hidden, asleep, like a 3-D painting in the forest of her heart. But if you look carefully you can spot her. My chest starts pounding again, like somebody’s hammering a long nail into the walls surrounding it.” Kafka feels a kinship with her that makes him wonder if she is his long lost mother. She has experienced tragedy, losing a lover when she was fifteen, and leaving behind a ghost of herself that becomes a haunting experience for Kafka. ”While they’re still alive, people can become ghosts.” As a parallel story we follow the old man Nakata and his truck driving sidekick Hoshino. Nakata experienced something as a child during the war that left him unable to comprehend reality, but also opened up doorways in his mind to things that if they ever existed... in our minds... have long been lost. He is crazy. He is a prophet. He can talk to cats. He can understand stones. He can open an umbrella and leeches or fish or lightening can fall from the sky. He isn’t crazy. Nakata searches for lost cats and discovers in the process that he has an arch nemesis in a cat killing phantom named Johnnie Walker. Johnnie turns cats into beautiful flutes and collects their heads in a similar fashion to big game hunters. After a confrontation Nakata finds himself with the need to leave which dovetails perfectly with his quest to find an entrance stone that opens up another world, another world where things have been left behind. "You should start searching for the other half of your shadow.” The connection between Nakata and Kafka are very strong. Their dreams mingle, a nemesis for one is a nemesis for the other. They may have different names, but they are one and the same. The quest for one of our heroes is contingent on the success of the other. If they are aware of each other it is buried under their own current perceptions of reality. One of the more humorous moments is when Hoshino, once a perfectly sane normal human being, meets Colonel Sanders, not someone dressed as Colonel Sanders, but the finger lickin’ good, fried chicken magnet himself. Hoshino, after several days of trying to wrap his head around the eccentricities of his traveling companion, is in need of relaxation. As it turns out the Colonel can help him have the best time of his life. He hooks him up with a prostitute, but not just any prostitute. ”The pure present is an ungraspable advance of the past devouring the future. In truth, all sensation is already a memory.” A philosophical prostitute with a special penchant for Hegel. ”Hegel believed that a person is not merely conscious of self and object as separate entities, but through the projection of the self via the mediation of the object is volitionally able to gain a deeper understanding of the self. All of which constitutes self-consciousness.” “I dont’ know what the heck you’re talking about.” “Well, think of what I’m doing to you right now. For me I’m the self, and you’re the object. For you, of course, it’s the exact opposite--you’re the self to you and I’m the object. And by exchanging self and object, we can project ourselves into the other and gain self-consciousness. Volitionally.” “I still don’t get it, but it sure feels good.” “That’s the whole idea.” the girl said. I have a new appreciation for Hegel. Kafka also meets a fantastic character named Oshima which I really can’t talk about without explaining him in detail, but by explaining him in detail would reveal a rather surprising moment in the book which I really want to preserve for those that haven’t read this book yet. Let’s just say he isn’t exactly who he seems, but he is exactly who he says he is. He proves to be the perfect friend for anyone, but for a dream questing fifteen-year-old runaway trying to escape an Oedipus Curse he is a steady rock to understand even those things beyond the scope of comprehension. He sees things for more than what they are. Oshima explains to Kafka why he likes Schubert. ”That’s why I like to listen to Schubert while I’m driving. As I said, it’s because all the performances are imperfect. A dense, artistic kind of imperfection stimulates your consciousness, keeps you alert. If I listen to some utterly perfect performance of an utterly perfect piece while I’m driving. I might want to close my eyes and die right then and there. But listening to the D major, I can feel the limits of what humans are capable of--that a certain type of perfection can only be realized through a limitless accumulation of the imperfect. And personally, I find that encouraging.” It is hard for those of us who have based their whole life off of reason to keep from instantly dismissing the improbable, the impossible, the absurd, the preposterous, but you must if you are going to hang with Haruki Murakami. Although, I must say there is something very accessible about his writing style that makes the transition from reality to alternative reality to fantasy back to a new reality painless. We all have mystical things happen to us. We rarely recognize it, most times we fill in what we don’t understand with something we can understand and in the process snap the threads of the extraordinary. I feel the lure of the unknown quite regularly. I feel the itch to leave everything and go someplace where no one knows my name. A place where maybe I can find the rest of my self, the lost selves each holding a fragment of the missing part of my shadow.

## Frequently Bought Together

- Kafka on the Shore
- Norwegian Wood: Million copy bestseller by Japanese author Haruki Murakami
- Men Without Women by Haruki Murakami | A Bestselling Collection of Short Stories | A Deeply Reflective and Philosophical Look at Loneliness

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*Last updated: 2026-04-25*