An acclaimed Japanese author, Haruki Murakami has created an immense literary and non-fictional oeuvre during his lifetime. Most of his short fiction and novels have been translated into English, rendering him a global best-seller, and, aside from the Nobel Prize for Literature, he has been awarded an abundance of prestigious literary prizes. The main focus of this article is his novel
Kafka on the Shore(2005), which has received high critical praise.
Magical realism aptly describes the generic qualities of Kafka, and Murakami’s fiction in general. This genre may be usefully defined as “fiction in which the setting is realistic yet contains definite elements of the supernatural that call attention to themselves, but must be accepted by readers as part of a ‘normal’ world”
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Citation: Scullion, Val. "Kafka on the Shore". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 09 August 2019 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=20091, accessed 24 April 2024.]
