If Cats Disappeared from the World, Genki Kawamura
If Cats Disappeared from the World, Genki Kawamura
49 Rating(s)
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If Cats Disappeared from the World
A Novel

Bestseller

Author: Genki Kawamura, Eric Selland

Narrator: Brian Nishii

Unabridged: 4 hr 49 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 03/12/2019


Synopsis

"Brian Nishii narrates this imaginative tale set in Japan about the complexities of death, life, and cats...A brief, charming parable." — AudioFile Magazine

The international phenomenon that has sold over a million copies in Japan, If Cats Disappeared from the World--now a Japanese film--is a funny, heartwarming, and profound meditation on the meaning of life.

The postman’s days are numbered. Estranged from his family, living alone with only his cat Cabbage to keep him company, he was unprepared for the doctor’s diagnosis that he has only months to live. But before he can tackle his bucket list, the Devil appears to make him an offer: In exchange for making one thing in the world disappear, our narrator will get one extra day of life. And so begins a very bizarre week…

With each object that disappears the postman reflects on the life he’s lived, his joys and regrets, and the people he’s loved and lost.

Genki Kawamura’s timeless tale is a moving story of loss and reconciliation, of one man’s journey to discover what really matters most in life.

Praise for If Cats Disappeared from the World:

"At first, If Cats Disappeared from the World feels as light and puzzling as a fairy tale, but then, steadily, chapter by chapter—using nothing more than conversation, memory, and a winning narrator's searching, sensitive thought experiments—it raises its cosmic stakes higher than any thriller. Like a padding cat or the shadow of death, Genki Kawamura's book snuck up on me; the next thing I knew, I was crying." — Robin Sloan, New York Times bestselling author of Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore and Sourdough

About Genki Kawamura

GENKI KAWAMURA is an internationally bestselling author. If Cats Disappeared from the World was his first novel and has sold over two million copies in Japan and has been translated into over fourteen different languages. His other novels are Million Dollar Man and April Come She Will. He has also written children's picture books including Tinny & The Balloon, MOOM, and Patissier Monster. Kawamura occasionally produces, directs, and writes movies, and is a showrunner. He was a producer of the blockbuster anime film Your Name.

About Eric Selland

Eric Selland is a a poet, translator, and the author. His translation of The Guest Cat, a novel by Takashi Hiraide, was on the New York Times bestseller list in February 2014. He has also published articles on Japanese modernist poetry and translation theory. He is the author of The Condition of Music, Inventions, and an essay in The Poem Behind the Poem: Translating Asian Poetry. Eric currently lives in Tokyo, where he works as a translator of economic reports.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Reading_ on January 19, 2025

This is my kind of book. This is my kind of story. This is my kind of favourite. This book gave me everything I wanted from a good book. It's fun yet it makes me think about a lot of things which actually matter in reality. I love how the author wrote such big things about life in such a simple way. It......more

Goodreads review by Joel on January 16, 2021

this book honestly made me cry. it really puts things into perspective about human connection, and the way we've constructed life as a whole. it emphasises the importance of living and doing the things that we want to do. i also appreciated the subtle nod of a characteristic of toxic masculinity, whe......more

Goodreads review by emma on February 24, 2024

This is an absolute stunner of a book. I'm a sucker for any story that makes us think about what makes life worth living, about the beauty in the mundane. So this book, which explores how the aspects of the everyday that we may consider the "little things" - clocks, movies, music, chocolate, cats - m......more

Goodreads review by Ruth on July 19, 2018

I wonder if the translation let this novella down? It was clunky, American English, and made me feel like an American teen had written it. Japanese literature that I've read is often quirky and a little odd (see Murakami!) but usually odd in a good way. This just left me a feeling a bit cold. The par......more

Goodreads review by Dr. Appu on March 06, 2023

What is the relation between Japanese novels and talking cats? This is one of the first things that came to my mind when I finished reading this book. I think that the Japanese novels, including almost all of Haruki Murakami's books, have portrayed cats in the best way possible and showed the bea......more