The Bridegroom Was a Dog

Title: The Bridegroom Was a Dog
Author: Yoko Tawada
Fiction: 1686342
ISBN: 9780811239967
Publisher: New Directions
Published: 2025
Binding: Hardcover
Language: English
Condition Note: New from the publisher
Publisher Description:

Masterfully turning the rules of folklore and fable on their head, The Bridegroom Was a Dog is a disarming and unforgettable modern classic. Its initial publication in 1998 garnered admiration from The New Yorker, which praised it as a "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 doglike man. A romantic -- and sexual -- courtship develops, much to the chagrin of her friends, who have suspicions about the man's identity.