 He spent the better part of the years 1990-5 living in Mexico before returning to Japan, where for a time he worked translating from Spanish-language movies into Japanese.In 1997 he published his first novel "The Last Gasp", for which he was awarded the Bungei Prize.He won the 13th Yukio Mishima Prize for his second novel "The Mermaid Sings Wake Up", which was published in 2000.