Black Wall and Other Writings

A lantern goes out beside a cedar scarred by the nails of a curse. In Izumi Kyōka’s Black Wall, a storyteller watches a woman complete a midnight ritual and finds a living human presence more terrifying than a ghost. His account joins other encounters with an uncanny world: two inherited kotos, a snowlit apparition, and a narrator who may or may not have outwitted a tanuki.

This anthology also follows Aeba Kōson along the springtime Sumida and Migishi Kōtarō through the streets, parks, docks, and circus of Shanghai. Poems by Mitomi Kuchiha, Serei Kunio, and Hagiwara Kyōjirō explore melancholy, a vanished royal past, and the unsettling force of the modern city.

Shiratori Kurakichi questions the ancient figures of Yao, Shun, and Yu; Lee Kwang-su tells of a young man longing for another’s love; and Hagiwara Kyōjirō reflects on Hagiwara Sakutarō’s poetry. All fourteen supplied entries appear in their given order, including the identified repeated poem, with author credits, period references, and reader notes. AI-assisted translation, prepared and edited by Valentin Sarić.