The Faceless Ghost and Other Macabre Tales from Japan

Eerie traditional Japanese ghost stories retold in a graphic novel format.

Over one hundred years ago, the writer Lafcadio Hearn gathered and translated into English a selection of traditional Japanese ghost/mystery stories. They were published asKwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things. In this new graphic novel, acclaimed manga creator Sean Michael Wilson retells six of these stories. All of them are very well known in Japan, where ghosts and demons are often calledyokai, meaning "the mysterious and weird." Today these stories find expression mostly in movies and manga, but they remain rooted in the traditional ghost stories of the Edo era known askaidan, which means "recited narrative of strange, mysterious, rare, or bewitching apparitions."

The book includes an afterword by William Scott Wilson, the esteemed translator and editor of Japanese texts and samurai philosophy, who puts the stories into historical context.

SEAN MICHAEL WILSON is a comic book writer who lives in Japan. He has had more than a dozen books published by US, UK, and Japanese publishers, and he often works with Japanese and Chinese artists on manga-style books, such asHagakure and Yakuza Moon.

MICHIRU MORIKAWA is a Japanese illustrator and manga artist and winner of the 2005 International Manga and Anime Award. With Sean Michael Wilson, she has created four graphic novels:Buskers, Yakuza Moon, The Demon's Sermon on the Martial Arts, and Musashi.