Kyoko Kuonji is said to be with child for the last twenty months, and her husband Makio disappeared a few months prior to her pregnancy. The odd circumstances have left the family with no one to turn to for help, until a freelance writer asks his exorcist friend to take on the case. The catch-the exorcist does not believe in ghosts. To Akihiko "Kyogokudo" Chuzenji, the supernatural is as much metaphysical and mental as it is unearthly.The Summer of the Ubume was the debut work by the Neil Gaiman of Japanese mystery fiction - Natsuhiko Kyogoku. Weaving together intrigue and Kyogoku's passion for Japanese folklore, particularly the paranormal and preternatural, this Summer gives birth to a new form of Japanese fiction.

    In popular songs called imayo, they expressed their concerns about religion, love, aging, and even current affairs.In 1179 Emperor Go-Shirakawa compiled Ryojin hisho, a twenty-volume collection of this song genre that juxtaposes the sacred with the profane, the high with the low, the male with the female, the old with the new. Kim makes these songs the core of her book, in translations that faithfully reflect the sounds and images of the originals and bring them to life within their own literary and cultural context.

    Mixing startling visual details and plot twists with subtle changes of hue and texture, these tales of ordinary Japanese families offer vivid portraits of secret unhappiness and betrayal of men trapped by obsession and insecurity, of women finding strength and sorrow in their ability to silently endure.- a wife's devoted effort to make her husband more refined is met by a vulgar betrayal- a fish mysteriously appears in a kitchen one afternoon, and no one but the philandering husband knows why- a young wife-to-be revels in the attention she gets from her fiance's assistant, until she finds out what he's really after- a man takes a day off work and discovers strange memories int he closets and drawers at home- a father worries that his daughter, like his own mother, may be incapable of controlling her sexualityA satisfying blend of literary style and sharp observations on modern domestic life, this collection introduces the late Kuniko Mukoda as a sensitive writer with a calculating, mischievous intelligence.