The Bridegroom Was A Dog: Embracing Transgression

By Karen Zheng

Yoko Tawada’s The Bridegroom Was A Dog (1998) is a jarring novel about the sexual relationship that unfolds between a woman, and a man who may or may not be a dog. Bizarre, twisted, and delightfully addictive - this is a contemporary fairytale for mature audiences.

Set in Japan, the story follows Mitsuko Kitamura, a schoolteacher of a local cram school. Kitamura begins by telling her students a tale about a young princess who cannot wipe her own bottom and has to get it licked clean by her dog. In this perverse fable, the princess ends up being intimate with and marrying the dog.

Mitsuko is an unconventional woman, which makes her the subject of gossip within the town. And the rumours only intensify when a man named Taro, who possesses doglike qualities, appears at her door. The pair immediately launch into a heavily sexual relationship that is unusually animalistic in nature.

Thus, Mitsuko’s reality starts to mirror the fictional tale that she had earlier recounted to her pupils. And things only get more peculiar from there. This book certainly does not shy away from the taboo.

Despite the apparent strangeness of this novel, I cannot recommend it enough. Tawada has crafted an erotic tale that leaves you quietly stunned and utterly captivated with every turn of the page. She writes with immense subtlety and the result is beautifully seductive.

The Bridegroom Was A Dog is a thrilling concoction of carnal gratification with a splash of the surreal added to the mix. The ambiguity and unpredictability that pervades the narrative only adds to its elusive pull.

Tawada has no doubt mastered the art of storytelling.