Even in this a thrill-a-minute age of ours, stories from this 17th Century Chinese classic still manage to shock and delight. The author, Pu Songling, called himself "Mr. Historian of the Strange" and gave the collection the enigmatic title of *Liaozhai Zhiyi*, which might be light-heartedly translated as "A Record of Paranormal Stories Told to Me in My Studio Where People Come to Chew the Fat."
The original stories vary in length from one-sentence observations of scientific phenomena to a mix of folk tales, cautionary tales, fairy tales, and short stories that might fall under the descriptions of magical realism, social satire or psychological narratives. The present volume of 36 short story translations are thematically organized under the headings of "Favor and Gratitude," "Reap What You Sow," and "Dreams and Obsessions."
