Designed in series with the Folio Society edition of Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami’s tender and nostalgic Norwegian Wood is illustrated with award-winning Daniel Liévano’s incredible artwork.
Kafka on the Shore
Illustrated by Daniel Liévano
Introduced by the author
Translated by Philip Gabriel
Newly introduced by Haruki Murakami, this outstanding Folio Society collector’s edition of Kafka on the Shore features the enigmatic and fantastical artwork of illustrator Daniel Liévano.
£110.00
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‘Murakami is a master storyteller and he knows how to keep us hooked’
- The Sunday Times
Teetering on the edge of a dreamworld, Haruki Murakami’s novels operate in the space between reality and fantasy, sanity and insanity – and Kafka on the Shore is no exception. A master of magical realism, Murakami draws the reader into his world and makes them want to stay, despite the darkness he is so adept at portraying, and this truthful yet romantic storytelling has earned him millions of devoted fans around the world. In his deeply personal new introduction to this edition, Murakami revisits the emotionally charged experience of creating 15-year-old Kafka’s journey from confused runaway to enlightened sage. His vision of loneliness and philosophical awakening has been beautifully interpreted by award-winning Colombian artist Daniel Liévano, whose stunning illustrations, motifs and binding design make this an artist’s book and one of Folio’s finest editions to date.
Winner of the Silver Medal from the Society of Illustrators in New York 2021.
Bound in blocked cloth
Set in Arno with Futura as display
528 pages
Frontispiece plus 6 colour illustrations including 3 double-page spreads, each with red motifs on reverse
Printed throughout in black and blue, including 41 illustrated motifs
Metallic printed endpapers
Blocked and die-cut slipcase
10˝ x 6¾˝
From the mind-bending slipcase design to the symbolic motifs on the metallic binding, and the ethereal endpapers, illustrator Daniel Liévano’s creative genius abounds throughout this edition. Murakami fans will be blown away by his affinity with the novel, as he weaves elements of the surreal and the sublime into each of the six single- and double-page illustrations and unique chapter motifs; the diagrammatic artwork systematically aligning the many threads of Murakami's masterpiece. Such is the synergy of narrative and artwork that, once experienced together, they will become inseparable.
‘As I wrote the novel, I breathed in the same air I’d breathed when I was 15, the same light I’d felt so many years ago pouring over me . . . And I realised how wonderful it is sometimes to be a writer.’
- Haruki Murakami, from his introduction
Murakami’s lyrical and uncomplicated writing style propels the reader through 15-year-old Kafka’s story, as his twisted history and destiny are revealed through strange coincidences and prophetic encounters. A forest full of stupefied schoolchildren; an illiterate old man who converses with cats; the ghost of a woman who is still very much alive; and a downpour of sardines and mackerel. Kafka on the Shore is full of fantastical interludes and yet it remains perfectly tangible. Murakami is the master of bending reality just enough to blur the line between fiction and fantasy, while shining a sensitive light on human nature through his use of metaphor.
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