A Vow for Two Lives and Other Stories

Izumi Kyōka gives the uncanny a texture of damp wood, pale-blue hair ties, red garment linings, mist, and thread. His apparitions do not arrive neatly separated from human feeling: pity, jealousy, and the longing to join a lost beloved all change what can be seen. Yet the stories resist easy explanations, holding tenderness beside violence and beauty beside fear.

This collection brings together “Three Feet Square,” “The Secret Prescription,” and “A Vow for Two Lives,” first published between 1899 and 1903. Each appears complete in a new English translation, with its original numbered sections and concise explanatory endnotes. Kyōka (1873–1939) was a Japanese writer whose richly visual prose gives these encounters their distinctive atmosphere. AI-assisted translation.