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The Fox Woman

core novel 2000 The Fox Woman / Fudoki

Record

First published2000
Original language EN
Work typenovel
Canon statuscore
Reader rating3.88 (1,766 ratings, collected 2026-09-28)
Page count382
First-edition ISBN9780312854294

Synopsis

In Heian-era Japan, the nobleman Kaya no Yoshifuji fails to receive a spring appointment at the Emperor's court and retreats, restless and depressed, to his long-neglected country estate with his wife Shikujo and their young son Tadamaro. Living under the floor of his wing of the house is a family of foxes: young Kitsune, her brother, her grandfather and her dim mother. Yoshifuji is fascinated by the foxes and writes poems about them; Shikujo, who believes foxes are evil, begs him to have them killed, and when he refuses she takes their son back to the capital. Kitsune, for her part, has fallen in love with the man. Her grandfather knows how a fox may take human form, through fox magic and a human skull, and the family builds an illusory human world to draw Yoshifuji in. The story is told through the three characters' diaries.

Where it sits

Awards (verified)

  • Crawford Award, 2001: won; The IAFA's award for best new fantasy writer, given for The Fox Woman; some lists date it to the novel's year rather than the award year.

Notes

  • The first of Kij Johnson's Heian-era 'Love/War/Death' novels; Fudoki (2003), set in the same world, is the second. Expands her Sturgeon Award-winning novelette Fox Magic (1994). Tor Books, January 2000.

Neighbouring works

Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings and are never conflated: a book's place in one says nothing about its place in the other.

  • Publication order, within The Fox Woman / Fudoki (standalone work): position 1 of 2: next Fudoki (2003)

Sources

← The Fox Woman / Fudoki dossier · All universes

Part of the Library. Fields without an identified source are omitted, never guessed.