Hofu-Mifa Book Club on Zoom

All readers are welcome to join us as we read and discuss books with an emphasis on Japanese culture/history with our friends in Hofu, Japan and members of MIFA.  Discussions will be on the second Thursday of the month at 7:00 pm Monroe local time and 9:00 am Friday Hofu local time.  This month we will be discussing Japanese Ghost Stories by Lafcadio Hearn. The meeting will be held on Zoom.  Please email david.ross@monroe.lib.mi.us for the meeting password.

MIFA - Monroe International Friendship Association

Summary: The dead wreak revenge on the living, paintings come alive, spectral brides possess mortal men and a priest devours human flesh in these chilling Japanese ghost stories retold by a master of the supernatural. Lafcadio Hearn drew on the phantoms and ghouls of traditional Japanese folklore - including the headless 'rokuro-kubi', the monstrous goblins 'jikininki', and the faceless 'mujina' who stalk the lonely neighbourhoods - and infused them with his own memories of his haunted childhood in nineteenth-century Ireland to create these terrifying tales of striking and eerie power. Today they are regarded in Japan as classics in their own right.