Originally written in Japanese, this passionate, vividly personal book draws on the author's experiences in Japan over thirty years. Alex Kerr takes us on a backstage tour, as he explores the ritualised world of Kabuki, retraces his initiation into Tokyo's boardrooms during the heady Bubble Years, tells how he stumbled on a hidden valley that became his home... and exposes the environmental and cultural destruction that is the other face of contemporary Japan. Winner of Japan's 1994 Shincho Gakugei Literature Prize