While many overseas scholars are attracted to the retrained aesthetics of Japanese arts and letters, it was the country's wild and wooly folklore that captivated Zack Davisson, an American writer and translator. While pursuing his masters degree in Japanese studies Davisson immersed himself in the mysterious world of kaidan. These are not your horror ghost stories, but any story that has an element of the strange and unusual.

Davisson has been working in the field for almost a decade and his website Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai has grown over the past four years into a formidable collection of fascinating tales of the Japanese paranormal. When asked if the stories have changed his worldview, he said that these stories provided him with a greater depth of appreciation for the variable nature of reality.

In this Japan Times Blogroll interview, we find out more about Davisson and how a short story can impart a wealth of insight about a country's culture. As Davisson said himself, quoting Lafcadio Hearn’s book “Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation,” “You couldn’t understand really Japan without understanding Japan’s ghost and folklore.”