During the WW11 a teacher takes a group of children on an excursion into the forest to pick mushrooms. When the children collapse in a comatose state with eyes open, she races back to the school for help. The children eventually recover, all except one boy who is taken to hospital. Decades later, Mr Nakata is that boy who eventually wakes up from the coma, but he’s forgotten everything, including how to read. The only thing he’s capable of is speaking to cats.

Leaving Tokyo, Kafka, a fifteen year old boy, heads west desperately running away from his father and their home. He’s a broken teen who’s never recovered from being abandoned by his mother and adopted sister. One night, after he arrives in Takamatsu, he mysteriously finds himself in a shrine with blood over his t-shirt, but he can’t remember how he got there. And so begin a series of unexplained events that keep the reader enthralled as only Mr Murakami can do.

• Other Asian 5 out of 5s