In Ghostly Japan »

Lafcadio Hearn was one of the first great interpreters of things Japanese for Western readers. His keen intellect, poetic imagination and clear style have ensured him a devoted readership for more than a century.

Upon his arrival in Japan in 1890, Lafcadio Hearn found himself enamored with the culture, people, and stories of the country, and would make Japan his home until his death in 1904. His collections of stories published during this time became the most popular of Hearn's writings, and earned him veneration worldwide as not only a great translator of Japanese mythology, but as a sensational teller of strange and wonderfully macabre tales. "In Ghostly Japan" is a wonderful collection of twelve ghostly stories and explorations of Shinto and Buddhist proverbs: "Fragment," "Furisodé," "Incense," "A Story of Divination," "Silkworms," "A Passional Karma," "Footprints of Buddha," "Ululation," "Bits of poetry," "Japanese Buddhist Proverbs," "Suggestion," "Ingwa-Banashi," "Story of a Tengu," and "At Yaidzu." Hearn was made a professor of English literature in the Imperial University of Tokyo in 1895, and is today revered by the Japanese for providing significant insights into their own national character.