If cats disappeared from the world

Author's name: Genki Kawamura

From the moment a person realizes they will die, they reach a fragile compromise between the hope of life and the acceptance of death. During this time, they recall many unfulfilled dreams and experience many regrets over trivial matters. But now that I have the ability to conceal things from this world, I see this regret as something wonderful; it is proof that I have truly lived my life in this world.

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When a person stands on the brink of death, offered an impossible bargain: a day's extension in exchange for the disappearance of something from the world, every small detail—from a fleeting chocolate bar to a phone you don't use to talk to your father—becomes a question about the meaning of existence. The story of a man awaiting his end and his deal with a demon becomes a mask for our collective fragility the moment we realize that survival is always contingent upon loss. The novel poses complex questions that may seem simple on the surface: What would it mean for the world to continue without cats? Without the things we consider insignificant? And what can we do in our final moments?

Since its publication, the novel has found an unprecedented global resonance: it has sold over two million copies, been translated and published in more than thirty-two countries, and become the subject of extensive critical discussion before being adapted into a brilliant film. It is a novel that has succeeded in transforming loss into a universal human question, a question about the paradise of possibilities, and moments of reflection and reviewing the course of life.

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