The sound of a trumpet across a Japanese mountain valley leads a young man to befriend a mysterious stranger. During repeated visits to the cave where the stranger has set up home, the young man learns about his life in the region. The stranger's hilarious, bawdy and touching narratives captivate the young man, but he begins to doubt their veracity. Can they really be true? 'Tales from a Mountain Cave' is a translation of Hisashi Inoue's highly popular 'Shinshaku Tono Monogatari' (新釈遠野物語), set in the Kamaishi area of Iwate Prefecture, Northeast Japan. Kamaishi was devastated by the tsunami of March 2011, and royalties on sales of this book will be donated to post-tsunami community support projects.