When a woman finds a kitten, it begins the start of an enduring friendship. Mayumi Inaba (1950-2014) was a Japanese poet and writer of fiction. Her 1999 fictionalised memoir, Mornings With My Cat Mii, describes her twenty-year relationship with her cat, Mii. She found the cat - then a kitten - stuck in a fence. The year was 1977, and Mayumi Inaba was living in a rental property with her husband. The house she leased had plenty of access to garden spaces, and little Mii would roam and return with her paws dirty, leaving traces on the floor. While her marriage was not entirely loveless, nor was it overwhelmingly passionate and Inaba and her husband found themselves growing apart. A split was made easier by the fact that her husband was more often than not working away from home. The couple seperated and Inaba bought a small fifth floor apartment. This meant that Mii would have to adapt to having no green spaces to play in. Life continued on, with Mii finding new places to play and even making friends with the neighbours. Inevitably, Mii grew old and became sick. A long final portion of the book describes in harrowing detail Mii’s last years, spent mostly incontinent and in need of devoted care. Mornings With My Cat Mii, long hailed a Japanese classic, now appears in English for the first time, translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori. It’s a sensitive and melancholic story about a single woman living alone, trying to connect to the world around her, and finding solace and emotional anchoring with her pet cat. The book is unusual in how it confronts the death of a pet in such an unsparing manner. The lengths that Inaba goes to looking after Mii (constant cleaning and putting up with bad odours) highlights the powerful emotional connection many people have with their pets. An intimate portrait of grief and solitariness. Mornings With My Cat Mii, by Mayumi Inaba. Published by Harvill/Secker. $32.99 Review by Chris Saliba Comments are closed.
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