Japanese Ghost Stories: Kwaidan by Lafcadio Hearn
“Then again she wept aloud,– so bitterly that the voice of her crying pierced into the marrow of the listener’s bones; – and she sobbed out the words of this poem: at the coming of twilight I invited him to return with me! Now to sleep alone in the shadow of the rushes of Akanuma! Ah! What misery unspeakable!”
Japanese for ‘ghost stories’, "Kwaidan" is a collection of supernatural tales told by the Greek-American writer and journalist Lafcadio Hearn, who, in 1890, went to Japan with a commission as a newspaper correspondent; the commission was terminated almost as soon as he arrived. Still, it was in Japan and despite having already published superbly evocative and critically acclaimed books on the more exotic aspects of New Orleans, that Hearn found his greatest inspiration. Japan would soon become his home. Through the goodwill of Basil Hall Chamberlain, Hearn gained a teaching position during the summer of 1890 at the Shimane Prefectural Common Middle School and Normal School in Matsue, a town in western Japan on the coast of the Sea of Japan. The Lafcadio Hearn Memorial Museum and his old residence are still two of Matsue's most popular tourist attractions. During his fifteen-month stay in Matsue, Hearn married Koizumi Setsu, the daughter of a local samurai family, with whom he had four children.[17] He became a naturalized Japanese, assuming the name Koizumi Yakumo, in 1896 after accepting a teaching position in Tokyo. After having been Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and, later on, Spencerian, he became Buddhist. Hearn was one of the first great interpreters of things Japanese for Western readers, and "Kwaidan" (1904) is a classic of occult horror. It was made into an omnibus film in 1965 and won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film.