Kafka on the Shore
E439667
Kafka on the Shore is a surreal, genre-blending novel by Haruki Murakami that intertwines the journeys of a runaway teenager and an elderly man who can talk to cats in a dreamlike exploration of memory, fate, and identity.
All labels observed (2)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Kafka on the Shore canonical | 3 |
| 海辺のカフカ | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T4451625 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Kafka on the Shore Context triple: [Haruki Murakami, notableWork, Kafka on the Shore]
-
A.
Norwegian Wood
Norwegian Wood is a 2010 Japanese film adaptation of Haruki Murakami’s novel, known for its melancholic coming-of-age story and featuring Rinko Kikuchi in a prominent role.
-
B.
Dodes'ka-den
Dodes'ka-den is a 1970 Japanese drama film directed by Akira Kurosawa, notable as his first color feature and a surreal, episodic portrait of life in a shantytown.
-
C.
Infinite Jest
Infinite Jest is a sprawling, postmodern novel by David Foster Wallace known for its complex structure, extensive endnotes, and darkly comic exploration of addiction, entertainment, and contemporary American life.
-
D.
The Blue Umbrella
The Blue Umbrella is a Pixar animated short film that follows the journey of a sentient blue umbrella through a rainy cityscape, showcasing photorealistic visuals and a charming, dialogue-free love story.
-
E.
Babel Tower
"Babel Tower" is a 1996 novel by A. S. Byatt that intricately weaves themes of language, law, and personal freedom within a richly detailed portrayal of 1960s England.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Kafka on the Shore Target entity description: Kafka on the Shore is a surreal, genre-blending novel by Haruki Murakami that intertwines the journeys of a runaway teenager and an elderly man who can talk to cats in a dreamlike exploration of memory, fate, and identity.
-
A.
Norwegian Wood
Norwegian Wood is a 2010 Japanese film adaptation of Haruki Murakami’s novel, known for its melancholic coming-of-age story and featuring Rinko Kikuchi in a prominent role.
-
B.
Dodes'ka-den
Dodes'ka-den is a 1970 Japanese drama film directed by Akira Kurosawa, notable as his first color feature and a surreal, episodic portrait of life in a shantytown.
-
C.
Infinite Jest
Infinite Jest is a sprawling, postmodern novel by David Foster Wallace known for its complex structure, extensive endnotes, and darkly comic exploration of addiction, entertainment, and contemporary American life.
-
D.
The Blue Umbrella
The Blue Umbrella is a Pixar animated short film that follows the journey of a sentient blue umbrella through a rainy cityscape, showcasing photorealistic visuals and a charming, dialogue-free love story.
-
E.
Babel Tower
"Babel Tower" is a 1996 novel by A. S. Byatt that intricately weaves themes of language, law, and personal freedom within a richly detailed portrayal of 1960s England.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (49)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
literaryWork
ⓘ
novel ⓘ |
| author | Haruki Murakami ⓘ |
| awarded |
World Fantasy Award for Best Novel
ⓘ
linked to:
World Fantasy Award
|
| awardYear | 2006 ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin | Japan ⓘ |
| englishPublicationDate | 2005 ⓘ |
| featuresElement |
dream sequences
ⓘ
metafictional references ⓘ supernatural phenomena ⓘ talking cats ⓘ |
| genre |
coming-of-age novel
ⓘ
contemporary fiction ⓘ fantasy fiction ⓘ magical realism ⓘ metafiction ⓘ philosophical novel ⓘ surreal fiction ⓘ |
| hasMotif |
classical music
ⓘ
crows ⓘ labyrinths ⓘ libraries ⓘ music ⓘ |
| hasPageCount | 505 (English hardback, approx.) ⓘ |
| hasTheme |
Oedipal myth
ⓘ
fate ⓘ free will ⓘ identity ⓘ loneliness ⓘ memory ⓘ metaphysics ⓘ |
| isbn | 9781400043668 ⓘ |
| mainCharacter |
Hoshino
ⓘ
Kafka Tamura ⓘ Miss Saeki ⓘ Oshima ⓘ
linked to:
Ōshima
Satoru Nakata ⓘ |
| narrativePerspective |
first-person
ⓘ
third-person ⓘ |
| narrativeStructure | dual narrative ⓘ |
| notableLocation | private library in Takamatsu ⓘ |
| originalLanguage | Japanese ⓘ |
| originalTitle |
海辺のカフカ
ⓘ
linked to:
Kafka on the Shore
|
| partOf | Haruki Murakami bibliography ⓘ |
| publicationDate | 2002 ⓘ |
| publisher | Shinchosha ⓘ |
| setting |
Japan
ⓘ
Shikoku ⓘ |
| translatedBy | Philip Gabriel ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Kafka on the Shore Description of subject: Kafka on the Shore is a surreal, genre-blending novel by Haruki Murakami that intertwines the journeys of a runaway teenager and an elderly man who can talk to cats in a dreamlike exploration of memory, fate, and identity.
Referenced by (4)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.