There is a reason this novel has become an international phenomenon, although it is not quite the one the marketing suggests.

Beneath the simple frame, lies a meditation on absence rather than death itself. As cats, telephones, films and music are imagined out of existence, Kawamura asks what ordinary objects hold together: memory, friendship, love, grief and identity. The novel is slight in size but quietly philosophical, unfolding through gentle thought experiments rather than dramatic revelations.

Originally published in Japanese as Sekai kara Neko ga Kietanara (世界から猫が消えたなら), the novel belongs to a contemporary tradition of Japanese fiction that uses fable-like structures to approach profound emotional question. It is less a novel about cats than about the invisible architecture of a life, and how we only begin to notice what matters when it threatens to disappear.

UK paperback edition, published by Picador (Pan Macmillan), 2018. Translated by Eric Selland. Very good condition. Binding is firm, pages are clean and unmarked, with only light shelf wear and minor rubbing to the covers from previous handling.