Reddit reviews Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things
We found 3 Reddit comments about Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
In the past, ZUN has mentioned Lafcadio Hearn (a.k.a. Yakumo Koizumi) when asked about the relationship between Yakumo Yukari and Maribel Hearn. Hearn was a real person who lived in Japan during the Meiji era and wrote a number of authoritative books on Japanese folklore and culture. A few of his books that you may wish to look into are:
Shipwrecks, by Akira Yushimura. It's a beautiful, devastating story. I can't recommend it enough.
Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa is very much worth reading. It's a bit of a mixed bag (IMO the author is overly reliant on European and Russian literary flourishes), but the better stories are stunning. Hellscreen is one of the best short stories I've ever read.
The writer who got me interested in Japanese culture was actually a Greek/Irish guy named Lafcadio Hearn. Books of his such as Kwaidan and In Ghostly Japan are really engaging and insightful forays into Japanese culture and cultural history. All his books are worth reading, but my favourites are the two I mentioned.
Seeing as I'm mostly now recommending books that aren't novels (sorry), have you come across Hagakure? If it's predominately Samurai your girlfriend is interested in, she really should read this.
I think I found German translations of all of these except Shipwrecks on Amazon. Perhaps you'll have more luck finding it elsewhere (hopefully I was just undone by only looking on an English website).
Manga seems an obvious choice here, something like Yotsuba to could be fun. Others to check out are Kamikaze Girls and Nana
In terms of mythology and folk lore:
Lafcaido Hearn's ghost stories are quite fun.
As is this book on Japanese monsters - The Book of Yokai
Lastly, I am a literature person so I have to recommend at least one piece of literature. Perhaps something like Banana Yoshimoto's Kitchen or Soseki's I Am a Cat could be good a young reader and serve as an introduction to Japanese literature. Though admittedly the Soseki may a little much for 12 years old. It is a great book though!