The Price of Three Stories ― Rare Folktales from Japan

“This delightful compendium of short, savory, and highly tellable tales embodies the beliefs and folkways of rural Japan—specifically the area most impacted by the recent tsunami and nuclear disaster. It adds immeasurably to our insight into that endangered world.”

—Joseph Sobol, Ph.D., director, ETSU Storytelling Graduate Program

Hiroko Fujita is a traditional ohanashi obaasan (storytelling

grandma). She spent her childhood in the rural mountain town of

Miharu in Fukushima Prefecture, where she heard hundreds of ancient

folktales from village elders. A graduate of Japan Women's University

who was an early childhood education for five decades, she now travels

Japan, teaching young mothers the old tales. The author of thirty-one

books in Japanese, she lives in Kashiwa, Chiba Prefecture, Japan.

Fran Stallings, a professional storyteller based in Bartlesville,

Oklahoma, interpreted for Mrs. Fujita's twelve storytelling tours of

twenty-two American states, Japan and Singapore. Stallings edited and

adapted English translations of Mrs. Fujita's storytelling handbook

Stories to Play With (August House, 1999) and a collection of forty-seven

tales known throughout Japan, Folktales from the Japanese Countryside

(Libraries Unlimited, 2008). Stallings' other publications include articles,

stories, songs, and four CDs. Her academic training in biology informs

her environmental work as “EarthTeller.”

In 2003, Fujita and Stallings received the National (U.S.)

Storytelling Network's International StoryBridge ORACLE Award for

their work on both sides of the Pacific. They hope that these books will

make Mrs. Fujita's stories available to English-speaking story lovers

everywhere.

Translator Makiko Ishibashi attended the University of Tokyo.

She lived in St. Louis while her husband did postdoctoral work and their

two sons attended American schools. Now their sons are grown, and

she lives in Saitama, Japan, with her husband. Her current interest is in

the ukiyoe (woodblock prints) of Hiroshige, and Edo (the old name for

Tokyo). She blogs bilingually at “A Hundred Views Of Edo”