Mornings Without MII

By Mayumi Inaba

Book Overview

INDIE BESTSELLER
Winner of the Sasakawa Foundation Translation Prize

A New Yorker Best Book of the Year So Far
A Must-Read: Literary Hub - The Millions - Kirkus Reviews - Shelf Awareness - BookPage - BookBub

"A great love story." --Sigrid Nunez, The New Yorker

"I have never read a book quite like this. Profoundly real, specific, moving, and beautifully written." ―Elif Batuman, author of Either/Or

Mornings Without Mii is a beloved Japanese modern classic: a deeply affecting story of solitude, independence, writing, grief, love, and life alongside a cat.

On a cool summer evening in 1977, Mayumi Inaba hears a forlorn cry carried by the breeze off Tokyo's Tamagawa River. She follows the sound to the riverbank and finds a newborn kitten only the size of her palm dangling from a fence, abandoned. Overcome by tender affection, she takes the cat back to the small apartment she shares with her husband and christens her Mii: so begins an ineffable bond.

Over the next twenty years, we follow Inaba, a poet and novelist by moonlight, as she pursues quiet, solitude, and a room of her own. Through it all, her cat, a fiercely independent creature in her own right, is her confidante and muse.

From the late Mayumi Inaba, a winner of the Kawabata Prize and the Tanizaki Prize, Mornings Without Mii is not just a love letter to companionship: it's a poignant, searching meditation on the forces that enable us to connect, to create, and to build a life.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0374614784
• ISBN13: 9780374614782
• Release Date: February 2025
• Publisher: Fsg Originals
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.39 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.1" x 7.5"

Customer Reviews

Cozy and Emotional

Sometimes, you want to sit down and read a cozy book with a cat featured on the cover. Sometimes, you find an emotional connection with how the author tells the story and their relationship with said cat. By the end of the book, you may also find yourself sobbing like a baby because cats are mortal creatures and you just read about two decade of her life well-Ioved before she passed. As above, this book will give you all the feels and compel you to find your nearest kitty for cuddles and kisses. absolutely loved this book because felt the author, an acclaimed international writer, was talking about one of the most important figures in her life. As you read, you realize Mii saved her as much as she saved Mi. That connection exists on every page, creating a story so profound that you'll almost forget it's a candid story of a woman finding her own identity and striking out on her own with a furry Companion at her side.