In 'Kafka on the Shore', what is the name of the boy who runs away from home?

In Kafka on the Shore, the boy who runs away from home is Kafka Tamura.

Kafka is a bookish fifteen-year-old who leaves Tokyo on his fifteenth birthday. He adopts the name Kafka in homage to Franz Kafka, partly to create a new identity and escape the painful history surrounding his family. His imagined companion, the Boy Named Crow, urges him to become the toughest fifteen-year-old in the world.

Kafka travels to Shikoku, where he finds refuge at the Komura Memorial Library in Takamatsu. His journey unfolds alongside the story of Satoru Nakata, an older man who can communicate with cats. The two narrative strands gradually connect through dreams, fate, memory, and a mysterious alternate reality.

A common mix-up is choosing Nakata because he is the novel's other central protagonist, or Oshima because of his important role at the library. Hoshino is also significant, but he is an adult truck driver who assists Nakata. Kafka on the Shore was first published in Japanese in 2002, with the English translation appearing in 2005.