I don’t know where Selland is from but I’m guessing he’s British from how this was translated. Characterization (which I’ll also go over later.).Cultural references were…hit and miss (but I’ll go over that later.).There were times when quirky comments in the Japanese were missing.

There were times when every word was translated in a sentence.Reading the translation (the US edition) alongside the Japanese (which is the first time I’ve ever done this) I noticed four thing: What would you give up if you could live for just one more day? It’s a story about what is meaningful in life, what value do we place on objects and people. However, the Devil makes a deal with him: for every one thing he makes disappear from the world, he may live one day longer.

This is a novella about a man who finds out he only has a few days left to live. If Cats Disappeared from the World was written by Genki Kawamura and translated by Eric Selland. The theme of this book is (as the narrator says many times) “you must lose something to gain something.” And, as a result of gaining the English edition for this novel a certain spark was lost from the original Japanese. This beautiful tale is translated from the Japanese by Eric Selland, who also translated The Guest Cat by Takashi Hiraide.įans of The Guest Cat will also surely love If Cats Disappeared from the World.What if all the cats disappeared from the world? What would be lost, what would be gained? Genki Kawamura's If Cats Disappeared from the World is a story of loss and reconciliation, of one man’s journey to discover what really matters in modern life. Because how do you decide what makes life worth living? How do you separate out what you can do without from what you hold dear? In dealing with the Devil our narrator will take himself – and his beloved cat – to the brink. But before he can set about tackling his bucket list, the Devil appears with a special offer: in exchange for making one thing in the world disappear, he can have one extra day of life. Estranged from his family, living alone with only his cat Cabbage for company, he was unprepared for the doctor’s diagnosis that he has only months to live.

If cats disappeared from the world