shashasha

This is the definitive edition of my "Tales of Tono".
― Daido Moriyama

This 2022 edition of Daido Moriyama’s work “Tales of Tono” by Tokyo-based publisher Akio Nagasawa features a larger format (compared to previous paperback issues) and, crucially, 47 previously unpublished photographs.
First published in 1976, “Tales of Tono” is named after a collection of Japanese folk tales told in the region around Tono, a small city in Iwate Prefecture in Japan’s north. The original folk stories tell of ghosts and unexplained supernatural phenomena, an atmosphere that also permeates the strange version of reality depicted in Moriyama’s photographs.

“After its initial publication by Asahi Sonorama in 1976, ‘Tales of Tono’ was reissued in different versions by Kobunsha in 2007, and by Tate Publishing in 2012. However, these were paperback, pocket size editions, which I found somewhat unsatisfactory with regard to enjoying the pictures. For this new, re-edited version, we used larger format, and included 49 previously unpublished photographs that were not included in the first edition.”
― Akio Nagasawa’s afterword