Takashi Hiraide was born in Moji, Kitakyushu in 1950. Hiraide has written numerous books of poetry & several books of genre-bending essays, including one on poetics & baseball. He currently lives in the west suburbs of Tokyo with a cat & his wife, the poet Michiyo Kawano. His novel, The Guest Cat, is a New York Times Bestseller.Eric Selland lives in Tokyo. He is the author of The Condition of Music, Inventions, & Still Lifes. Selland is co-editing an anthology of twentieth-century Japanese experimental poetry with poet & translator Sawako Nakayasu, which is scheduled to appear from New Directions Books in 2022. He makes his living as an independent translator of Japanese economic research reports.

zlib/Fiction/World Fiction/Takashi Hiraide, Eric Selland (translation)/The Guest Cat - PDFDrive.com_9765125.pdf

Hiraide, Takashi; Selland, Eric

New Directions Books

Picador

United States, United States of America

New York, 2014

London, 2014

S.I, 2014

2, 2014

A wonderful sui generis novel about a visiting cat who brings joy into a couple's life in Tokyo A bestseller in France and winner of Japan's Kiyama Shohei Literary Award, The Guest Cat , by the acclaimed poet Takashi Hiraide, is a subtly moving and exceptionally beautiful novel about the transient nature of life and idiosyncratic but deeply felt ways of living. A couple in their thirties live in a small rented cottage in a quiet part of Tokyo; they work at home, freelance copy-editing; they no longer have very much to say to one another. But one day a cat invites itself into their small kitchen. It leaves, but the next day comes again, and then again and again. Soon they are buying treats for the cat and enjoying talks about the animal and all its little ways. Life suddenly seems to have more promise for the husband and wife ? the days have more light and color. The novel brims with new small joys and many moments of staggering poetic beauty, but then something happens.... As Kenzaburo Oe has remarked, Takashi Hiraide's work "really shines." His poetry, which is remarkably cross-hatched with beauty, has been acclaimed here for "its seemingly endless string of shape-shifting objects and experiences,whose splintering effect is enacted via a unique combination of speed and minutiae."

The Guest Cat is a subtly moving novel that conveys deeply felt ways of being. Two writers, a young couple, enjoy their quiet cottage in a leafy part of Tokyo: they work at home as freelance editors. One day a cat invites herself into their small kitchen. She is a beautiful creature. She leaves, but comes again, and then again and again. New, small joys, radiated by the fleeting loveliness of life, accompany the cat; the days take on more light and color.

An international bestseller. A charming and wonderful novel about a cat that brings joy into a couple's life.

2020-12-02