Brilliantly entertaining and eerie ghost stories regarded as major classics in Japan by the
Irish writer and Japanophile Lafcadio Hearn-whose life inspired bestselling writer Monique
Truong's novel The Sweetest Fruits A Penguin Classic In this collection of classic ghost
stories from Japan beautiful princesses turn out to be frogs paintings come alive deadly
spectral brides haunt the living and a samurai delivers the baby of a Shinto goddess with
mystical help. Here are all the phantoms and ghouls of Japanese folklore: rokuro-kubi whose
heads separate from their bodies at night jikininki or flesh-eating goblins and terrifying
faceless mujina who haunt lonely neighborhoods. Lafcadio Hearn a master storyteller drew on
traditional Japanese folklore infused with memories of his own haunted childhood in Ireland
to create the chilling tales in Japanese Ghost Stories. They are today regarded in Japan as
classics in their own right.
