The Writer’s Cats
By Muriel Barbery and Maria Guitart
()
About this ebook
From the best-selling author of The Elegance of the Hedgehog comes this delightful, delicate tale that pays tribute to the poetry of the everyday, to Japanese philosophy, and to the ingenuity and sardonic humor of cats.
What a mysterious, confounding thing is a writer! Yet, spend a little time with the writer’s cats and one might just understand her better.
Muriel Barbery, via her feline friends and co-conspirators, takes readers into her atelier, offering them a behind-the-scenes peek into her process and problems, joys and disappointments. The tale is told from the perspective of one of the writer’s four cats, Kirin, who, together with her cohort, may or may not be a reliable narrator. There’s Ocha, the leader of the gang, a tough guy with a soft heart; the bandy-legged and affectionate Mizu, Ocha’s sister; the phlegmatic and refined Petrus, lover of flowers; and finally, pretty Kirin, narrator of this bewitching story.
A superb, funny, and touching text for writers, readers, fans of Muriel Barbery’s best-selling novels, and cat lovers.
Muriel Barbery
Muriel Barbery is the author of six previous novels, including the IMPAC-shortlisted, multimillion-copy bestseller The Elegance of the Hedgehog. Published in France in 2006 and in the UK in 2008, the novel was translated in 44 countries, selling more than 10 million copies worldwide, and was described by Le Figaro as ‘the publishing phenomenon of the decade’. Barbery has lived in Kyoto, Amsterdam and Paris and now lives in the French countryside.
Read more from Muriel Barbery
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The Writer’s Cats - Muriel Barbery
ALSO BY Muriel Barbery
The Elegance of the Hedgehog
Gourmet Rhapsody
The Life of Elves
A Strange Country
A Single Rose
The Writer’s Cats
To my Pepito
To Karole Armitage
To my family
To Matilda and Aleix,
stay wild and keep on smiling
catFirst of all, let me make one thing clear: we like our writer. She’s kind. She never forgets when it’s time for our meal. She doesn’t scream when she sees a dead mouse. She tosses bottle corks to us (our favorite game at aperitif time) while she’s drinking wine (which is not infrequent). She takes us to the vet the minute we fart out of tune. We really do like her.
But enough is enough.
I’ll tell you straight: without us, our writer would not be the writer she is. I don’t know if she’d be worse or better, but she’d be different, that’s all. Why? Because even if we can’t speak, we are peerless literary advisors.
How can a cat claim to be a literary advisor?
you might wonder (and rightfully so). I shall explain.
But first allow me to introduce our tribe. We are four Chartreux cats, which means we have gray fur and orange eyes. When our writer’s best friend saw us for the first time, he said, "They