In other works of Murakami, Jay Rubin was a major translator and one could quite make out the difference in the ways of translation by the different English writers. The problem with translation I find, is that the voice of the author changes quite often than not. Umibi no Kafuka, which translates to Kafka On The Shore was translated by Philip Gabriel, and the English version can definitely sense the presence of the new translator. Philip Gabriel also explained that translating this book was a different kind of task as certain details took days of experimenting and finding the right voice for the characters in English. But with Kafka On The Shore, he writes with the language of kids, Kakfa being a fifteen year bright boy, and Nakata, a sixty-ish year old man who never developed mentally beyond that of a child. Murakami’s other previous works consisted of adults and their stories. I chose this particular translated book of Murakami’s because it is very different from his other works, a new style of writing. It is a surreal, coming of age novel, with the struggles of all the characters in fighting with their personal demons. The life of Kafka and Nakato intertwine as Nakato kills Kafka’s father, who he thought was Johnnie Walker.

They awaken shortly after, except for Nakato, who was in a coma for a few days before waking up, disoriented, but with the ability to talk to cats. Nakata’s story starts with the recordings of an X-File by Americans who talk about a group of fourth graders who go up into the mountains looking for mushrooms before seeing a UFO, and passing out.

Kafka, the first strander runs away from his home and father who kills cats to make flutes out of their souls, and ends up in the home of Mrs Saeki, the owner of a Library. It tells the story of two stranders, Kafka Tamura, and Nakata. Kafka On The Shore was published in 2002 in Japan, and was later translated to English by Phillip Gabriel. That’s what’s most important, because that’s how I wrote them.” “My books exist in their original Japanese. He claimed in an interview that he never reads his translated works, the reason being that, reading his work in a different language could be disappointing. He is also a translator and translated many other English works, most notably ‘The Great Gatsby’ into Japanese.Īlthough well versed with the English language, Murakami writes in Japanese, which is later translated by his personal translators into English. In his first novel ‘Hear the Wind Sing’, he wrote the first pages in English and later translated them into Japanese just to hear what they sounded like. It was then that he first had the urge to write, and he later produced his first ever novel ‘Hear the Wind Sing’, which won him the new writers award. From the inspirations from the western world, Murakami ran a Jazz bar in downtown Tokyo when he was 29.

Kafka on the shore online