First American Publication
This stunning and elegiac novel by the author of the
internationally acclaimed Wind-Up Bird Chronicle has sold over 4
million copies in Japan and is now available to American audiences
for the first time. It is sure to be a literary event.
Toru, a quiet and preternaturally serious young college student
in Tokyo, is devoted to Naoko, a beautiful and introspective young
woman, but their mutual passion is marked by the tragic death of
their best friend years before. Toru begins to adapt to campus life
and the loneliness and isolation he faces there, but Naoko finds
the pressures and responsibilities of life unbearable. As she
retreats further into her own world, Toru finds himself reaching
out to others and drawn to a fiercely independent and sexually
liberated young woman.
A poignant story of one college student's romantic coming-of-age,
Norwegian Wood takes us to that distant place of a young man's
first, hopeless, and heroic love.