{"title":"Lafcadio Hearn","description":"Lafcadio Hearn was born in Greece, eventually settling in Cincinnati where he became the city's best-known crime reporter but was fired after marrying a black woman. Devastated, he moved to New Orleans, where he championed French Creole and Caribbean culture and created the city's image as a place of voodoo and debauchery. Hearn arrived in Japan at a time of historic change. Sent there as a correspondent, over the next dozen years, he published 15 books on his adopted home and emerged as the leading writer on Japan and Japanese culture.","products":[{"product_id":"kwaidan-stories-and-studies-of-strange-things-paperback","title":"Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eUpon 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. \"Kwaidan\" is most commonly translated as weird or horror tales, but to assign one word to the people, places, ghosts, and gods in this work, one can only use the word strange. This collection of supernatural tales includes twenty stories translated from old Japanese texts. 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. This edition is printed on premium acid-free paper.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50101168963807,"sku":"9781420967517","price":11.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/igbp6Ebxvc9781420967517.webp?v=1781068394"},{"product_id":"kwaidan-stories-and-studies-of-strange-things-paperback-1","title":"Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDeriving its title from the word for \"ghost story\" in Japanese \u003cem\u003eKwaidan \u003c\/em\u003eis a compilation of supernatural tales from Japan. Hearn writes in his introduction, written only months before his death, that the majority of the stories were translated from old Japanese texts (some of which themselves were based on earlier Chinese tales), although one of the stories, \"Riki-Baka,\" he declares to be of his own making, based on a personal experience. Unmentioned in the introduction, another of the stories - \"Hi-Mawari\", written in the first person - appears almost certainly to be born from his own experience also, a recollection of a childhood experience in Wales.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAmong the many curious happenings related in the other stories, we read of man-eating goblins, a musician who performs for the dead, a mysterious face appearing in a cup of tea, and, rather terrifyingly, a featureless girl with a face as smooth as an egg.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe final section of the book, \"Insect-Studies,\" presents Chinese and Japanese superstitions relating to the insect world: butterflies (personifications of the human soul), mosquitoes (karmic reincarnations of jealous or greedy people), and ants (humanity's superior in chastity, ethics, social structure, longevity, and evolution).\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eVastly different from ghost stories in the West, this collection will haunt your dreams and leave you shivering in the dark.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50101535015135,"sku":"9781434104991","price":17.26,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/sNBNuBGjSE9781434104991.webp?v=1781071676"},{"product_id":"kwaidan-stories-and-studies-of-strange-things-kwaidan-stories-and-studies-of-strange-things-paperback","title":"Kwaidan - Stories and Studies of Strange Things: Kwaidan - Stories and Studies of Strange Things - Paperback","description":"","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50101544747231,"sku":"9788027340767","price":11.41,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/Nm5DeHg0MEZvUTJQeWpKanhuWW92QT09.webp?v=1781071694"},{"product_id":"kwaidan-stories-and-studies-of-strange-things-paperback-2","title":"Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eMost of the following Kwaidan, or Weird Tales, have been taken from old Japanese books, -such as the Yaso-Kidan, Bukkyo-Hyakkwa-Zensho, Kokon-Chomonshu, Tama-Sudare, and Hyaku-Monogatari. Some of the stories may have had a Chinese origin: the very remarkable \"Dream of Akinosuke,\" for example, is certainly from a Chinese source. But the story-teller, in every case, has so recolored and reshaped his borrowing as to naturalize it... One queer tale, \"Yuki-Onna,\" was told me by a farmer of Chofu, Nishitama-gori, in Musashi province, as a legend of his native village. Whether it has ever been written in Japanese I do not know; but the extraordinary belief which it records used certainly to exist in most parts of Japan, and in many curious forms... The incident of \"Riki-Baka\" was a personal experience; and I wrote it down almost exactly as it happened, changing only a family-name mentioned by the Japanese narrator\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50101555003615,"sku":"9781983504303","price":8.08,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/K20wUDRQVFFJUyt2YmFoNWI5VUxidz09.webp?v=1781071715"},{"product_id":"the-boy-who-drew-cats-a-japanese-folktale-hardcover","title":"The Boy Who Drew Cats: A Japanese Folktale - Hardcover","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eA beloved Japanese folktale retold by Lafcadio Hearn and vividly illustrated by artist Anita Kreituse.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eA young boy has a singular talent: he's obsessed with drawing cats. Sent away to train as a priest, he holes up at a haunted temple stalked by a ferocious Rat Goblin. Talent and fortitude save the day when the boy's fantastic felines awaken in the night and defend their creator. Evocatively illustrated by Anita Kreituse, the art itself feels magical in this charming fable. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eA powerful testament to being yourself and finding your true calling, \u003ci\u003eThe Boy Who Drew Cats\u003c\/i\u003e will delight readers, and art lovers of all ages. Lafcadio Hearn's classic retelling finds a perfect pairing in Kreituse's fabulous and whimsical artwork.","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50101864038623,"sku":"9780804859561","price":16.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/XASPHU4mP69780804859561.webp?v=1781075786"}],"url":"https:\/\/blackandbarhe.com\/collections\/lafcadio-hearn.oembed","provider":"Black \u0026 Barhe Bookstore","version":"1.0","type":"link"}