Tokyo and New York: Kodansha International, (1989) dj. Hardcover first edition - The author's third novel, a literary thriller first published in 1982, and his first book to be translated into English. "It begins simply enough: A twenty-something advertising executive receives a postcard from a friend, and casually appropriates the image for an insurance companys advertisement. What he doesnt realize is that included in the pastoral scene is a mutant sheep with a star on its back, and in using this photo he has unwittingly captured the attention of a man in black who offers a menacing ultimatum: find the sheep or face dire consequences. Thus begins a surreal and elaborate quest that takes our hero from the urban haunts of Tokyo to the remote and snowy mountains of northern Japan, where he confronts not only the mythological sheep, but the confines of tradition and the demons deep within himself." Winner of the 1982 Noma Literary Newcomer's Prize. Translated from the Japanese by Alfred Birnbaum. 299 pp. ISBN: 0-870119052.