Norwegian Wood

Norwegian Wood is a 1987 novel by Japanese author Haruki Murakami, a nostalgic story of loss told from the first-person perspective of Toru Watanabe, who looks back on his days as a college student living in Tokyo and, through his reminiscences, develops relationships with two very different women, the beautiful yet emotionally troubled Naoko and the outgoing, lively Midori. Set in late-1960s Tokyo during a period when Japanese students were protesting against the established order, the novel portrays the student movement, through the eyes of Watanabe and Midori, as largely weak-willed and hypocritical; Murakami adapted its first section from an earlier short story, Firefly, and the novel was hugely popular with Japanese youth, making Murakami something of a superstar in his native country.