These powerful, at times surreal, works about two young men coming of age the unnamed narrator and his friend the Rat are stories of loneliness, obsession, and eroticism. They bear all the hallmarks of Murakami s later books, and form the first two-thirds, with "A Wild Sheep Chase," of the trilogy of the Rat. Widely available in English for the first time ever, newly translated, and featuring a new introduction by Murakami himself, "Wind/Pinball"gives us a fascinating insight into a great writer s beginnings.