The Bridegroom Was a Dog

Internationally acclaimed author Yoko Tawada's most famous — & bizarre — tale in a stand-alone, New Directions Pearl edition. The Bridegroom Was a Dog is perhaps the Japanese-German writer Yoko Tawada’s most famous story. Its initial publication in 1998 garnered admiration from The New Yorker, who praised it as, “fast-moving, mysteriously compelling tale that has the dream quality of Kafka.” 

The Bridegroom Was a Dog begins with a schoolteacher telling a fable to her students. In the fable, a princess promises her hand in marriage to a dog that has licked her bottom clean. The story takes an even stranger twist when that very dog appears to the schoolteacher in real life as a dog-like man. They develop a very sexual, romantic courtship with many allegorical overtones — much to the chagrin of her friends.  

Tawada Yoko was born in Tokyo in 1960 & moved to Germany after graduating from Waseda University with a degree in Russian Literature. She has a master's degree from the Univ. of Hamburg & a doctorate from the Univ. of Zurich. Tawada has received accolades, including the Akutagawa Prize, Tanizaki Prize, Yomiuri Prize for Literature, Goethe Medal, Kleist Prize, National Book Award, & Japan Foundation Award. She writes in both German & Japanese & frequently gives readings & lectures around the world. 

Margaret Mitsutani was born in Pittsburgh, & after graduating from the College of Wooster she earned a master's degree in comparative literature from the Univ. of Tokyo. She taught for more than 40 years at the Sugiyama Jogakuen University Junior College, Tokyo Institute of Technology, & Kyoritsu Women's University, where ah is now a professor emeritus. She has translated works by Tawada Yoko, Kakuta Mitsuyo, Oe Kenzaburo, & others. In 2018, her English translation of Tawada Y