30 Nights with the Yurei: Japanese Ghost Stories Retold

By: Makoto Press

In Japan, the dead do not leave.They linger at the edges of rooms in white burial robes. They rise from wells to count the plates that were never found. They visit their lovers at midnight, carrying lanterns painted with peonies, beautiful and skeletal and incapable of letting go. They write sutras in their own blood and swear to overturn the order of the world.

They are the yūrei - the ghosts of Japan - and their stories are among the oldest, strangest, and most emotionally devastating in world literature.

30 Nights with the Yūrei brings thirty of these stories to life in polished, atmospheric, modern English prose. Each tale is drawn from the Japanese ghost-story tradition - from Lafcadio Hearn's landmark Kwaidan to Ueda Akinari's literary masterpiece Ugetsu Monogatari to the kabuki stage's most terrifying plays - and retold for the contemporary reader who wants to be immersed, not lectured.

The stories include: Oiwa - the disfigured wife whose face appears in every lantern, every mirror, every surface her faithless husband looks at, until he cannot tell the living from the deadThe Peony Lantern - a samurai who falls in love with a woman who visits him every night, not knowing she is a skeleton carrying a lanternEarless Hōichi - a blind musician summoned by warrior ghosts to perform for an audience of the dead, protected by sacred text written on every inch of his body - except his earsThe Snow Woman - a spirit of winter who kills with her breath, spares a young man, marries him, bears his children, and vanishes when he breaks a promise he kept for ten yearsThe Chrysanthemum Vow - a samurai who kills himself so his ghost can keep an appointment, because the promise was more important than his lifePlus vengeful emperors, cursed kimonos, severed heads that fly across the country, dead mothers who buy candy for babies born in their coffins, and a painter who watches his daughter burn alive to complete his masterpiece.

Each story includes: The Night Before - a brief atmospheric scene-setter that draws you into the story's worldOne Word (一語) - a single Japanese word explored in a short essay, opening a window into something English cannot quite reachOn This Story - source notes, historical context, and the real geography behind each taleNo prior knowledge of Japan required. The stories are self-contained, the Japanese terms are translated, and the cultural context is woven in naturally. Whether you're a lifelong Japan enthusiast, a mythology reader, a horror fan, or someone who simply loves a well-told story in the dark, this book was written for you.

Read one story per night. Read at night. And when you finish the thirtieth story and the last candle goes out, sit for a moment in the dark and listen.

The tradition says something might come through.

Part of the 30 Nights with... series - each volume explores a different creature from Japanese folklore.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0GX1ZF4QG
• ISBN13: 9798257188077
• Release Date: April 2026
• Publisher: Independently published
• Length: 331 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.5" x 0.8" x 5.5"