Nature as refuge and revelation: Ecocritical reflections on Haruki Murakami’s Kafka on the shore

We live in an age of environmental crisis and the world is menacingly lost into pollution, contamination and ecological disaster. It is high time for us to think about nature for creating a more sustainable and better earth. Ecocriticism investigates the relation between humans and the natural world in literature and also deals with studying literature from environmental perspectives. The present paper deciphers the integral relationship between human beings and nature in Haruki Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore and how the characters of the novel take refuge to nature to solve the riddle of their existence in this merely meaningless world. The paper explores how Haruki Murakami through dreamlike narrative makes an ally between human psyche and the natural world. In this novel we experience eco-surrealistic incidents happening like fishes and leeches falling from sky, an old man talking with cats and dogs, stone capable of changing its colour and weight and the enchanting sea and forest. Nature becomes a living entity in this novel and gives solace to the distressed selves and helps them to find their lost identities.