Yoko Tawada

These tales from a talented new writer--winner of Japan's top literary prize--are as exuberantly strange as the best of dreams. Tawada brings a highly individual approach to the short fiction genre.

The Bridegroom was a Dog

犬婿入り

Margaret Mitsutani

Internationally acclaimed author Yoko Tawada's most famous — and bizarre — tale in a stand-alone, New Directions Pearl edition. The Bridegroom Was a Dog is perhaps the Japanese-German writer Yoko Tawada’s most famous story. Its initial publication in 1998 garnered admiration from The New Yorker, who praised it as, “fast-moving, mysteriously compelling tale that has the dream quality of Kafka.” The Bridegroom Was a Dog begins with a schoolteacher telling a fable to her students. In the fable, a princess promises her hand in marriage to a dog that has licked her bottom clean. The story takes an even stranger twist when that very dog appears to the schoolteacher in real life as a dog-like man. They develop a very sexual, romantic courtship with many allegorical overtones — much to the chagrin of her friends.

The Bridegroom Was a Dog

weird but i like the surrealism. it's also a bit comedic on some parts, overall this is not for everyone, but i still enjoyed it! it surprised me on the part where the characters came to terms with their sexuality and freedom (mostly from the nosy housewives), i think that's interesting in this kind of story

ayoni

A collection of sexual tales by a Japanese writer. The title story is on an affair between a woman and a man-dog, while The Gotthard Railway is on the adventures of a Japanese woman in Europe.

The Bridegroom was a Dog

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