Lafcadio Hearn, born to Greek and Irish parents, eventually attained Japanese citizenship and took the name Koizumi Yakumo. His writings on Japan provided a window on a country that - at the time he was producing material - was still a land of mystery to foreign readers. And Kwaidan - a collection of "ghostly" tales - is perhaps his most well-known work.

Kwaidan - the source for some of the stories featured in the film of the same name - is not a collection of ghost stories in the way that you'd expect. Rather than dripping blood and zombification, the stories highlight the uncanny side of life. Nothing that happens here - scary as they might be to the characters involved - is considered to be anything other than a part of nature. It's interesting - Hearn's writing conveys far more effectively the mixture of influences on Japanese folktale and mythology than other writers I've encountered so far.

The academic side of Hearn's reinterpretation of these old tales - the roots of the stories told come from older texts - is evident but not cloying. Indeed, the part of the book I thought I'd enjoy least - his treatises on different insects - came to be my favourite part of the work. The study of butterfly haiku, and of the sex-life of ants are things that aren't soon forgotten.