Mornings Without MII - by Mayumi Inaba (Paperback)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

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.

Review Quotes

"Moving . . . Mornings Without Mii shows that few things are more rewarding and humbling than devoting yourself to a creature you know you will outlive."
--Stacey Yu, Literary Hub

"[Like] a fable; something elusive in the very calm of the voice rehearsing the simple history of a woman and her cat feels at once both distinctly Japanese yet deeper, older, larger than culture itself."
--Vivian Gornick, Tablet

"[A] moving memoir . . . [of] the daily joys and intimacies of having a pet . . . Inaba's portrait of the human-feline relationship is reverential, an expression of devotion."
--The New Yorker

"A heartbreaking story . . . Exquisite."
--Charlotte Shane, Bookforum

"A meditative memoir about love, grief, writing, and cats. What a lovely book to curl up with this spring."
--McKayla Coyle, Literary Hub

"I was delighted to come across [Mornings Without Mii] . . . Inaba defies expectation and pushes the limits of what we expect a memoir to do for a reader . . . Mii is a representation of resilience, of taking leaps into the dark towards desires."
--Julia Shiota, Cleveland Review of Books

"[A] resonant slice of Japanese literature . . . A striking evocation of the way we meld our lives and hearts with a beloved creature."
--Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Cat lovers, prepare to weep."
--Siobhan Murphy, The Times

"Supernaturally insightful and aglow with incidental joys, Mornings Without Mii uncovers something eternal about companionship, about being alone, and about cats."
--Rivka Galchen, author of Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch

"[A] soulful account . . . [Mornings Without Mii] rapturously recounts Inaba and Mii's evening walks, their afternoons spent admiring the Tokyo skyline, and, as Mii started to fall ill, their meditative trips to the countryside . . . A must-read for pet lovers with sturdy hearts."
--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Marvelous, a cat classic."
--Catherine Lacey, author of Biography of X (on Substack)

"A woman writer meditates on solitude, art, and independence alongside her beloved cat in Inaba's modern classic."
--Sophia M. Stewart, The Millions

"Heartstring-tugging, haunting . . . Lovingly chronicle[d] . . . Grateful readers will recognize Inaba's visceral connection and find deep comfort here."
--Terry Hong, Shelf Awareness (starred review)

"Sure to tug the heartstrings of cat lovers everywhere . . . Profoundly intimate . . . [An] exquisite story, one that is sure to stay with its readers long after they dry their eyes."
--Christine Runyon, BookBrowse

"This book is more than a tribute to a companion. It's proof of a world normally concealed from humans, exposed here through the eyes of an artist. Mornings Without Mii captures the otherworldly luck and requisite doom of finding and being found by a cat. I could barely get through it--a compliment."
--Sloane Crosley, author of Grief Is for People

"[A] bracing and beautiful memoir . . . suffused with honesty and emotional heft."
--Linda M. Castellitto, BookPage (starred review)

"Unforgettable . . . A profound account of caring for a loved one across their entire life and the privilege such care entails . . . Sweet and timeless."
--Annie Bostrom, Booklist

"An homage to love and loss in a relationship between a human and an animal."
--Ellen Prentiss Campbell, Washington Independent Review of Books

"[A] modern classic . . . Ending on [a] note of redemption, the story is full of positive energy. Whatever is happening in the wider world, there is always love, even if it's not the conventional kind."
--Jane Wallace, Asian Review of Books

"[Mornings Without Mii] evokes genuine pathos . . . Not only a story of the joy of animal companionship, but also its grief."
--Thu-Huong Ha, The Japan Times

"I have never read a book quite like this. The profoundly real, specific, moving, and beautifully written story of a woman who becomes a writer and falls in love with a kitten, and then lives with these things--both the writing, and the cat--for the next twenty years. I learned new things about myself and my cat, and also about (some) people and cats in 1970s-1990s Tokyo."
--Elif Batuman, author of Either/Or

About the Author

Mayumi Inaba (1950-2014) was a prizewinning novelist and poet. Her works include The Sea Staghorn and To the Peninsula, for which she won the Kawabata Yasunari Prize and the Tanizaki Prize.

Ginny Tapley Takemori has translated fiction by more than a dozen early-modern and contemporary Japanese writers. Her translation of Sayaka Murata's Akutagawa Prize-winning novel Convenience Store Woman was one of The New Yorker's best books of 2018, was Foyles Book of the Year 2018, and was short-listed for the Indies Choice Award and Best Translated Book Award.