Kappa's Izakaya

"... It’s past 9 pm. A man enters an izakaya in Tokyo and has an encounter with Mr. Five, a kappa. The man finds himself confiding in Mr. Five about his marriage and his wife’s strange compulsion to disappear or run away. Little does Kevin know that kappas—the river demons of Japanese folklore—desire nothing more than the souls of other humans...."

Set between Singapore and Japan, the full story is split into eight discrete sections, tracing the rippling effects of this chance encounter across a host of other characters, connected and bound to one another in ways both strange and serendipitous.

"Kappa's Quartet" by Daryl Qilin Yam was originally originally published by Epigram Books (2016 print) and available on Storytel (2019; audiobook). This 360 illustration for “𝗦𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗮” 𝗦𝗰𝗮𝗿𝘆 𝗦𝗶𝗻𝗴𝗮𝗽𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 was commissioned by Tusitala Books, for The Arts House at The Old Parliament, created in partnership with Storytel, organised as part of Buy SingLit and supported by the National Arts Council Singapore.