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Where the Wild Ladies Are

Where the Wild Ladies Are

by Aoko Matsuda

Published by Soft Skull

8.3"x5.5", 288p, softcover

$16.95

Out of Stock

This witty and exuberant collection of linked stories are feminist retellings of traditional Japanese folktales. Humans live side by side with spirits who provide a variety of useful services, from truth-telling to babysitting, from protecting castles to fighting crime.  A busybody aunt who disapproves of hair removal; a pair of saleswomen hawk portable lanterns; a cheerful lover who visits every night to take a luxurious bath; a silent house-caller who babysits and cleans while a single mother is out working. Where the Wild Ladies Are is populated by these and many other spirited women, who also happen to be ghosts. This is a realm in which jealousy, stubbornness, and other excessive “feminine” passions are not to be feared or suppressed, but rather cultivated; and, chances are, a man named Mr. Tei will notice your talents and recruit you, dead or alive (preferably dead), to join his mysterious company. Aoko Matsuda takes the rich, millenia-old tradition of Japanese folktales, shapeshifting wives and foxes, magical trees and wells, and wholly reinvents them, presenting a world in which humans are consoled, guided, challenged, and transformed by the only sometimes visible forces that surround them.

 

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