THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELLED.

Eerie red marks on the apartment’s ceiling kept Eisner Award nominated translator and Japanese folklorist Zack and his wife on edge. The landlord warned them not to open a door in the apartment that led to nowhere. “Our Japanese visitors had no problem putting a name to it ,” Davisson explains in the introduction of Yūrei: The Japanese Ghost. “They would sense the vibes of the place, look around a bit and inevitably say, ‘Ahhh . . . yūrei ga deteru.’ There is a yūrei here.”
Inspired by his lifelong fascination with Japanese folklore and his personal experiences with these famed spirits, Davisson launches an investigation into the origin, popularization and continuation of yūrei beliefs. As chilling as it is informative, Yūrei: The Japanese Ghost gives historical context to the West’s growing interest in yūrei by juxtaposing years of research, over a dozen never-before-translated ancient ghost tales, and Edo-era illustrations against contemporary J-horror films, such as The Ring, to give Westerners the means to truly understand, appreciate and fear yūrei.
Zack Davisson is a translator, writer and scholar of Japanese folklore. He is the translator of Mizuki Shigeru’s Showa and Kitaro for Drawn & Quarterly. He has also worked as a researcher and on-screen talent for National Geographic’s TV special “Japan: Lost Souls of Okinawa.” Davisson’s essays can be found in Weird Tales, Wayward and Kansai Time Out, and his monthly translations of Japan’s supernatural legends can be found on his popular website, www. hyakumonogatari.com. Zack Davisson lives with his wife in Seattle, Washington.
 
Questions:
Please contact Briana Burrows, Program Coordinator, at bburrows@usajapan.org or (415)986-4383.