The Shadow Book of Ji Yun by Yn Ji
Imagine if a national political figure like Benjamin Franklin was also a paranormal investigator, one who wrote up his investigations with a storytelling flair that reads like a combination of M.R. James, Lafcadio Hearn, and Zhuangzi-with a dash of the bureaucratic absurdism of Kafka sprinkled in, alongside a healthy dose of H.P. Lovecraft's weird antiquarianism. In China, at roughly the same time that Franklin was filling the sky with electrified kites, there was such a figure. He was Special Advisor to the emperor of China, Imperial Librarian, and one of the most celebrated scholars and poets of his time. His name was Ji Yun (??).Beginning in 1789, Ji Yun published five volumes of weird tales and ghost stories that combined supernatural autobiographical accounts with early speculative fictions. Combining insights into Chinese magic and metaphysics with tales of cannibal villages, sentient fogs, alien encounters, and fox spirits; as well as accounts of soul swapping, haunted cities, and the "jiangshi" (the Chinese vampire), there is no literary work quite like that of Ji Yun. Awards and Honors of Individual Pieces: *Finalist for the 2020 [Gabriel García Márquez] "Gabo" Award for Literature in Translation *Selected for New England Review's 2020 Haunting and Haunted Issue *Selected for Strange Horizon's "Samovar" Quarterly Special Issue *Nominated as "Best Microfiction" by Cincinnati Review *Nominated as "Best of the Net" by Passages North *Nominated as "Best of the Net" by Cincinnati Review| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781953124012 |
| ISBN 10 | 1953124011 |
| Title | The Shadow Book of Ji Yun |
| Author | Yn Ji |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Empress Wu Books |
| Year published | 2021-06-05 |
| Number of pages | 338 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |