If Cats Disappeared from the World: A Novel

by Genki Kawamura, Eric Selland (Translator)

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

Fans of We’ll Prescribe You a Cat: we have your next read. Tender, hopeful and cozier than drinking your favorite tea, uncover the mysteries of life alongside one unforgettable character and his loyal companion in this big-hearted story.

The international phenomenon that has sold more than two million copies, If Cats Disappeared from the World—now a Japanese film—is a heartwarming, funny, and profound meditation on the meaning of life.

This timeless tale from Genki Kawamura (producer of the Japanese blockbuster animated movie Your Name) is a moving story of loss and reconciliation, and of one man’s journey to discover what really matters most in life.

The young postman’s days are numbered. Estranged from his family and 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 shows up to make him an offer: In exchange for making one thing in the world disappear, the postman will be granted one extra day of life. And so begins a very strange week that brings the young postman and his beloved cat to the brink of existence.

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250257680
Publisher:	Flatiron Books
Publication date:	02/25/2025
Pages:	176
Sales rank:	6
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

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.

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.

Table of Contents

Monday: The Devil Makes His Appearance

Tuesday: A World Without Phones

Wednesday: A World Without Movies

Thursday: A World Without Clocks

Friday: A World Without Cats

Saturday: A World Without Me

Sunday: Good-Bye, World

Editorial Reviews

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

"If you're a fan of The Guest Cat (or even just cats generally), you'll love this." —The Sunday Times (UK)

"A funny and heartwarming meditation on the meaning of life." —Book Riot

"A warm, quirky novel on life, love, family estrangement and what remains when we are gone with a surprising emotional charge." —The Observer (UK)

"A poignant, affecting story about facing up to one's mortality, taking responsibility for one's choices and deciding what truly holds value." —The Herald (UK)

"The story will have readers re-evaluating the possessions they have and what they might gain from losing them...and are sure to come away from the story seeing the world and the people around them a little differently." —International Examiner

From the Publisher

Brian Nishii narrates this imaginative tale set in Japan about the complexities of death, life, and cats. At the outset, an unnamed 30-year-old man receives a terminal diagnosis. As imminent death looms, he receives a visit from the devil (cheekily named Aloha). The young man must decide if Aloha's offer to extend his life is worth the alternative losses he'd have to endure. As the young man, Nishii offers a sensitive portrayal, moving from disbelief and despair to growing acceptance and resolution as he reckons with past relationships. As the devil, Nishii employs a gregarious attitude, lightening the character's macabre sensibilities. Then there's Cabbage, the cat, whose specific opinions, offered in a posh accent, prompt deeper insight into the meaning of life. A brief, charming parable. A.S. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

MAY 2019 - AudioFile

Brian Nishii narrates this imaginative tale set in Japan about the complexities of death, life, and cats. At the outset, an unnamed 30-year-old man receives a terminal diagnosis. As imminent death looms, he receives a visit from the devil (cheekily named Aloha). The young man must decide if Aloha's offer to extend his life is worth the alternative losses he'd have to endure. As the young man, Nishii offers a sensitive portrayal, moving from disbelief and despair to growing acceptance and resolution as he reckons with past relationships. As the devil, Nishii employs a gregarious attitude, lightening the character's macabre sensibilities. Then there's Cabbage, the cat, whose specific opinions, offered in a posh accent, prompt deeper insight into the meaning of life. A brief, charming parable. A.S. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

MAY 2019 - AudioFile

2019-02-17

A lonely postman learns that he's about to die—and reflects on life as he bargains with a Hawaiian-shirt-wearing devil.

The 30-year-old first-person narrator in filmmaker/novelist Kawamura's slim novel is, by his own admission, "boring…a monotone guy," so unimaginative that, when he learns he has a brain tumor, the bucket list he writes down is dull enough that "even the cat looked disgusted with me." Luckily—or maybe not—a friendly devil, dubbed Aloha, pops onto the scene, and he's willing to make a deal: an extra day of life in exchange for being allowed to remove something pleasant from the world. The first thing excised is phones, which goes well enough. (The narrator is pleasantly surprised to find that "people seemed to have no problem finding something to fill up their free time.") But deals with the devil do have a way of getting complicated. This leads to shallow musings ("Sometimes, when you rewatch a film after not having seen it for a long time, it makes a totally different impression on you than it did the first time you saw it. Of course, the movie hasn't changed; it's you who's changed") written in prose so awkward, it's possibly satire ("Tears dripped down onto the letter like warm, salty drops of rain"). Even the postman's beloved cat, who gains the power of speech, ends up being prim and annoying. The narrator ponders feelings about a lost love, his late mother, and his estranged father in a way that some readers might find moving at times. But for many, whatever made this book a bestseller in Japan is going to be lost in translation.

Jonathan Livingston Kitty, it's not.

Kirkus Reviews