A Wild Sheep Chase is one of Murakami's most fantastical novels. An advertising executive, infatuated with a girl who possesses the most perfect ears, is sent on a search for the sheep with a star on its back. This catapults him into a weird adventure to find the sheep in the wilds of Hokkaido, Japan's northern island. There are strange stories, strange encounters. A Wild Sheep Chase is an early Murakami work, but its remarkable and individual voice makes it one of the most compelling -- and funny -- of his books. Superbly read by Rupert Degas with an edge of Raymond Chandler. Haruki Murakami was born in Kyoto on 12 January 1949. He began writing at the age of 24. The impulse to do so first struck him, he says, during a baseball match, at the very moment when a famous player hit a home run. He went straight home and started to write. With translations in other European languages, and a growing following on both sides of the Atlantic, Haruki Murakami's standing as one of the leading international writers of our time is increasing, and makes audio versions essential.