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Mornings With My Cat Mii

byMayumi Inaba, Ginny Tapley Takemori (Translator)

On a cool summer evening in 1977, Mayumi Inaba hears a forlorn cry. She follows the sound to the banks of Tokyo’s Tamagawa River and finds a newborn kitten dangling from a fence, abandoned. Overcome by tender affection, she takes the cat back to the small apartment she shares with her husband and christens her Mii: so begins an unshakeable bond.

Over the next twenty years, we follow Inaba, a poet and novelist by moonlight, as she pursues quiet solitude and a room of her own. Through it all, Mii, a fiercely independent creature in her own right, is her confidante and muse.

This beloved Japanese modern classic is not just a love letter to companionship: it’s a poignant, searching meditation on the forces that enable us to connect, to create and to build a life.

[A] gentle meditative narrative… Inaba muses on her own life…and has to confront mortality… Cat lovers, prepare to weep

The Times, *Book of the Month*

About Mayumi Inaba

Mayumi Inaba (1950–2014) was a Japanese writer, editor and poet. She made her debut in 1973 with the short story ‘The Pain of Blue Shadows’, and she went on to write many novels and collections for which she won several awards, including the Kawabata Yasunari Prize. She was awarded the Tanizaki Prize for To the Peninsula. Inaba was well known for her love of cats.
Details
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • ISBN: 9781529922813
  • Length: 192 pages
  • Price: £10.99
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