By : Haruki Murakami
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.
Barcelona (ACN).The Japanese writer Haruki Murakami has won this year’s prestigious international prize, the ‘Premi Internacional Catalunya’. It is awarded annually by the Catalan Government to individuals who have contributed decisively with their work to develop cultural, scientific and human values around the world. Last year, former US President Jimmy Carter received the award. Other winners have been: the leader of Myanmar’s opposition Aung San Suu Kyi, the anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, American writer Harold Bloom, French oceanographer Jacques Yves Cousteau,British philosopher Karl Popper,Indian economist Amartya Sen, former Czech Republic President and writer Václav Havel, or former European Commission President Jacques Delors, among others. Murakami was awarded by the jury because “his work transcends its cultural environment and he has become a reference for the literary world”. The author of ‘Norwegian Wood’,‘Kafka on the Shore’ and ‘After Dark’ has an individual universe, which switches between dreams and reality. According to the prize’s jury, “he has built a literary bridge between East and West”. The Premi Internacional Catalunya includes a prize of 80,000 euros and a sculpture from Catalan artist Antoni Tàpies.
