JAPANESE GHOST STORIES (HIROKO YODA)

 

Many of the ghost stories of Japan came to the fore during the Edo period with its famous woodblocks of ukiyo – e, the floating world.

This collection of Japanese ghost stories brings together fantastic tales of vengeful spirits, mountain – dwelling phantoms, man – eating oni, haunted trees, and child-rearing ghosts, with stories such as Yuki-Onna, Hoichi the Earless, The Ghost of O-Kiku from The Bancho Sarayashiki, the sorry tale of O-Iwa from the Yotsuya Kaidan, The Peony Lantern and The Ghost Who Bought Candy. Japan has a long and ancient custom of sharing stories of the supernatural, brought to fashionable prominence in the Kaidan literature of the Edo period, now presented here for the modern reader.

THE AUTHOR: HIROKO YODA

Hiroko Yoda is a Japanese entrepreneur, translator, writer, folklorist, and president of the localization company AltJapan Co., Ltd.  She was also a Tokyo city editor for the CNN travel website CNNGo. She is a translator of video games and the author of numerous books about Japanese history and culture. She is particularly known for her pioneering work contextualizing yokai  culture for English-speaking audiences

Informtion from: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroko_Yoda

THE BOOK

Hello there, I know it’s been a while since I last posted, but, here we are again, the intention is to try and publish more often tan I have been doing lately.

Going to the topic, today, I wanted to talk about the book Japanese Ghost Stories by Japanese entrepreneur, translator, writer and folklorist Hiroko Yoda, which, as you have read above, is a recopilation of ghost stories from Japanese folklore.

In the case of the different tales I think they are really effective, mainly because, Japanese have a special hability with horror since the are able to create a ghost from a simple daily objet, people who are in their mid thirties might remember the film ringu (and its late occidental versión the ring) that was able to create a really unconfortable situation with just a video tape.

Another good thing about this book is the selection of tales, that mix tales with daily objets and vengeful spirits that come back from death to haunt, and maybe kill the ones who hurt them in life (this is the case of Oiwa and Okiku).

I would recomend you this book, if you like horror stories, and if you are intrested in Japanese folklore