The Ise Scroll and Other Writings

This collection brings together three complete writings. Love Affairs with Books recalls the secret pleasures of childhood reading and the books entwined with family memories. A Little Uncanny considers reported hauntings whose causes remain uncertain. The Ise Scroll follows a traveler through a pilgrimage town into a startling vision.

Kyōka, one of Japan’s distinctive masters of fantastic fiction, gives ordinary objects and landscapes an extraordinary intensity. His teahouses, rivers, forests, silk robes, and gleaming jewels carry both sensuous detail and moral unease.

This English translation preserves the works’ full narrative movement, dialogue, embedded songs, and dated closing lines. AI-assisted translation.