Asian Ghost Stories | Multiple Authors | Horror | Netgalley ARC Book Review

 

Book Info

Name of Book : Asian Ghost Stories

Author :  Multiple authors

Publisher : Flame Tree Collections

Publication Date : June 28, 2022

No. of Pages : 432

Format :  Netgalley ARC

Why did I choose the book ?

I was looking for a horror book on Netgalley, when I came across Asian Ghost Stories. The description was nice, so requested it for a review.

Where to get the book ?

Asian Ghost Stories is available on Amazon :

Hardcover

Author Introduction

Dr Luo Hui (Introduction) is a senior lecturer in the School of Languages & Cultures at Victoria University of Wellington. His PhD thesis from the University of Toronto delved into the strange and slippery realm of Pu Songling’s ghost stories, and it has been a topic of personal and academic fascination ever since. He recorded an episode on Chinese ghost tales for the BBC Radio 4 series, A History of Ghosts, in 2020. His creative nonfiction, ‘Ghost Records’, appeared in A Clear Dawn: New Asian Voices from Aotearoa New Zealand in 2021.

K. Hari Kumar, a.k.a. ‘Horror Kumar’ (Foreword), is an Indian screenwriter and bestselling author of horror novels. Hari is the first Indian writer to be listed on Amazon.com's top 50 bestsellers in the horror category. He has also written 50 horror short stories that were published in his 2019 book India’s Most Haunted (HarperCollins India), which The Times of India deemed a must-read horror book and which was listed among HarperCollins India’s 100 best books written by Indian writers. His 2018 psychological thriller, The Other Side of Her, spawned the acclaimed Hindi language web series Bhram (2019). Currently, he is producing a series of Hindi-language short horror films based on Indian myths and folktales.

Lee Murray (Associate Editor) is a multi-award-winning author-editor from Aotearoa-New Zealand (Sir Julius Vogel, Australian Shadows awards), and double Bram Stoker Award®-winner. Author of the Taine McKenna Adventures, The Path of Ra trilogy (with Dan Rabarts) and Grotesque: Monster Stories, she has edited seventeen volumes of speculative fiction, including Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women. She is co-founder of Young NZ Writers and of the Wright-Murray Residency for Speculative Fiction Writers, HWA Mentor of the Year for 2019, NZSA Honorary Literary Fellow, and the Grimshaw Sargeson Fellow for 2021. Read more at leemurray.info

Blurb

Another deluxe edition of new writing and neglected perspectives. Asian ghosts and supernatural beings – from India to Sri Lanka, China to Korea, Japan to the Philippines – can be both terrifying and comforting. Underpinned by strong cultural beliefs in the cycles of life and ancestor worship, the nature of Asian spirits differs from that of their counterparts in other areas of the world. The possibility is more instinctually accepted that ghosts remain with us, as part of the world, whether we can see them or not.

Featured here are all kinds of stories from across East, South and Southeast Asia: classic weird tales by the likes of Pu Songling, Rabindranath Tagore, S Mukerji, Im Bang and Yi Ruk, Lafcadio Hearn and Yei Theodora Ozaki, are complemented by stories by Asian writers of today. An egui (the Chinese version of a 'hungry ghost') is exorcised, a vicious jiangshi (Chinese zombie-like revenant) is encountered in the night, a Bengali shakchunni (the ghost of an unsatisfied bride) poignantly seeks love with devastating effect, a family is haunted by vengeful Korean gwishin, and the iconic Japanese tragedies of Oiwa and O-Kiku are revisited.

My Opinion

Asian Ghost Stories is a collection of short horror stories translated from some famous works all over Asia. I had hopes for the book, but somewhere it lacks the basic thing. The stories are translated from their original language and that is where the problem starts. The translation is not so good, due to which the essence of the story got lost. Although, some of the stories are really good, but, the other stories are totally disappointing.

I could only give 3 stars to the book. Thanks to Netgalley for providing me an opportunity to read and review the book.

Ratings

• Recommendation -------------- ⭐⭐⭐
• Cover ---------------------------- ⭐⭐⭐⭐
• Translation ---------------------- ⭐⭐⭐