The Journey of Grief: The Resilience of Suicide Survivors in Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood

 
Abstract
 
David Damrosch, in his book How to Read World Literature (2009), posits that the challenges readers confront in dealing with the world’s various literatures are noticeable. He is convinced that a work of world literature has an extraordinary ability to transcend the boundaries of the ‘culture literary outlooks’ that certain texts produce (2). World literature gains through translation. Translation plays an important role in creating the category of ‘world literature’, a term that has acquired new currency in this era of globalization (Chaudhuri 593). The Japanese writer, Haruki Murakami (1949- ), is one of the most prominent authors whose works have achieved incredible popularity in his native country and world-wide; they have also received rising critical praise. By the remarkable success of his works all over the world, Murakami has become known as a phenomenon. His literary debut also differs from his predecessors and many of his contemporaries in its preoccupation with the world outside Japan. Critics argue that Murakami’s distinct style is influenced by Western culture, particularly by Western music and literature which are reflected in his literary works. Since world literature is now stimulating literary studies everywhere, not only in the US and Europe, but also in China, Japan, India, and many other countries, a close reading and interpretation of Murakami’s Norwegian Wood, from the perspective of an Arabic critic and in relation to a global theme, can offer new perceptions for practical criticism and theoretical explorations. One of the worldwide themes that he uses in many of his works is suicide which is now the third leading cause of death in adolescence worldwide. Inspired by David Damrosch's view on world literature as a distinct type of literary production, this paper aims to examine the English translated version of Norwegian Wood (1987) that provides plenteous opportunity for analysis of the psychological impact of an adolescent’s suicide on his friends, who are termed by psychologists as “suicide survivors”. Drawing on psychological studies by Clifton D. Bryant, David E. Balk, Charles A. Corr, Margaret S. Stroebe and Wolfgang Stroebe, the paper focuses on grief of the survivors as an aftermath of suicide and how it appears to differ from one adolescent to the other.