Abandoning a Cat: A Personal Story by Murakami, Haruki
Abandoning a Cat: A Personal Story by Murakami, Haruki

Abandoning a Cat: A Personal Story

A moving reflection on the author's father--plus a cat!--this is a beautiful short work of family history...
$31.20 USD
$31.20 USD
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Author: Haruki Murakami
Format: Hardcover
Language: English
Subtotal: $31.20
Abandoning a Cat: A Personal Story by Murakami, Haruki

Abandoning a Cat: A Personal Story

$31.20
Abandoning a Cat: A Personal Story by Murakami, Haruki

Abandoning a Cat: A Personal Story

$31.20
Author: Haruki Murakami
Format: Hardcover
Language: English
Description
A moving reflection on the author's father--plus a cat!--this is a beautiful short work of family history from one of our most beloved, iconic writers.

Originally published in the New Yorker in 2019, and now presented in a full, unabridged form, Abandoning a Cat is a poignant, self-reflective work by Haruki Murakami.

Here he writes about his father, the son of a priest who might have become a priest himself had a clerical error not sent him into the second world war. Murakami's father wrote accomplished haiku and eventually became a teacher. As Haruki grew older -- as he became an adult and then a writer, he and his father found they had little in common. They were later estranged for twenty years, only reconciling on his father's deathbed.

This haunting personal essay is a reflection on what it means to be a father and what it means to be a son -- on what it means to be loved and to be abandoned -- and also on a particular moment of Japanese history, through the aftermath of the second world war on into the present. Murakami fans may find common themes from beloved novels such as Kafka on the Shore and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle -- but will also be surprised by the raw honesty of this beautiful autobiographical piece.

Author: Haruki Murakami
Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
Published: 10/27/2026
Pages: 80
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.46lbs
Size: 8.27h x 5.13w x 0.48d
ISBN: 9798217208692


Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 08/10/2026
Library Journal 09/01/2026 pg. 115
Booklist 09/01/2026
Kirkus Reviews 09/15/2026

About the Author
HARUKI MURAKAMI was born in Kyoto in 1949 and now lives near Tokyo. His work has been translated into more than fifty languages, and one of the most recent of his many international honors is the Cino Del Duca World Prize, whose previous recipients include Jorge Luis Borges, Ismail Kadare, Mario Vargas Llosa, and Joyce Carol Oates.
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