Kafka on the Shore

A first UK printing of Haruki Murakami's masterpiece

Author

Haruki Murakami, translated from the Japanese by Philip Gabriel

Publisher

Harvill Press, London, 2005

Printing Details

First edition, first printing (full number line). Hardback in dustwrapper. 24 × 15.5cm, 505pp.

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.

Condition

Good. The book itself is in strong readable condition, with some minor bumping to the boards edges and tanning to the pages. The dustwrapper has not been price-clipped but suffers from some indentations to the spine and along the front joint. It is now within a protective sleeve.