Act as miniatures that aim to be regarded as the pinnacle of classical Chinese fiction. These tales with their prose and wordplay, include 104 stories that reveal a world, in which nothing is as it seems. Here a Taoist monk conjures up a pear tree, a scholar recounts his incarnations, and a woman out-foxes the fox-spirit that possesses her.
“Magical and wondrously entertaining . . . Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio overflows with ghosts, demons, monsters, monks, magicians, revived corpses, gods and fox-spirits. . . . [It] calls to mind a collection of mildly racy club stories or lost episodes of The Twilight Zone. . . . Fast paced, surprisingly light in tone, emotionally cool, wryly humorous—these uncanny tales, often just one or two pages long, might almost be adult bedtime stories. . . . Reading this beloved classic provides a particularly enjoyable way to help celebrate Chinese New Year.” —The Washington Post