Kwaidan (Stories and Studies of Strange Things) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Lafcadio Hearn is well-known in his Japanese name, Koizumi Yagumo. Actually, I never doubted that Koizumi Yagumo was a born-Japanese. His famous Kwaidan, or Japanese ghost stories are so "Japanese" and it really scared me. When my brother told me that Koizumi Yagumo is actually a Western people, I didn't believe it at first... He was born in 1850 in Greek, his mother's country. Educated in his father's country, Ireland, he went to USA when he was 19 years old. He worked as a journalist in New Orlens, then came to Japan and became an English teacher in Matsue, Shimane prefecture in 1890. He married with Yae Koizumi and got Japanese citizenship.Kwaidan includes ghost stories lik Earless Ho Ichi, a Biwa (Japanese PiPa) player and story teller of famous Heike legends, who was possesed by Heike (the warrior family once governed Japan then defeated) warriors' ghosts because of his talent, and Mujina, bewitched racoon dogs which scare people to death. Koizumi Yagumo is more Japanese than Japanese... Koizumi Yagumo is still popular in Japan (and I believe a lot of people still believe that he is a born-Japanese...). When I searched Koizumi Yagumo in Japanese Goo, it hit 422!

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Product Description:
"Most of the following Kwaidan, or Weird Tales, have been taken from old Japanese books...Some of the stories may have had a Chinese origin ... But the Japanese story-teller, in every case, has so recolored and reshaped his borrowing as to naturalize it."--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.