by Mayumi Inaba (Transl. Ginny Tapley Takemori)
Harvill Secker (October 3, 2024)

Review by Nicky Harman

Mayumi Inaba (稲葉 真弓, 1950-2014) was a Japanese writer and poet whom I confess I had never heard of. I am glad I didn’t let that stop me reading Mornings with My Cat Mii. Published in Japanese in 1999 and now translated into English by Ginny Tapley Takemori, it had me gripped.

Inaba finds Mii as an abandoned new-born. She and her husband adopt the kitten, give her a name (onomatopoeic) and watch as Mii grows and explores their garden and its plants, their smells and colours and the neighbourhood noises. Inaba does not seem to be an experienced cat-owner at this point: Mii is impregnated by a stray tom and nearly dies because she is still only a half-grown kitten, too small to give birth. However, she survives and thrives:

“Mii was by now settled in the house and familiar with the woods. She enjoyed playing with the stray cats and came in and out as she pleased. Just hearing the wails of the cats in the grounds of the shrine or the sound of them crawling through the hole in the lean-to by the bathroom and running about the house was enough to bring a smile to my lips. The physiology and instincts of these lively, young and supple, utterly uninhibited creatures enriched my nights. Mii was as cowardly as ever among the Kokubunji cats that did as they pleased, but still she went outside. And she would quietly leave the house as though gauging that it was time for me to work.”

Inaba separates from her husband and, after some considerable difficulty, she and Mii move into a flat. (Who knew that most city flats and houses in Japan refuse to accept pets?) Mii gets used to high-rise apartment living though she has no sense of which flat is hers, and in one distressing episode gets lost and ends up at a neighbour’s for the night – a neighbour who then becomes a close friend to Inaba.

Through difficult times (Inaba also gets sacked from her job), a constant in her life is Mii. Inaba says many other things about her relationship with Mii, and it seems invidious to select one short quote, but I was particularly struck by this description:

“Since my husband had left, Mii and I had become closer than ever. Our intimacy was spun without words and in time formed into an unbreakable bond. We slept in the same bed, entrusting our bodies to each other, snuggling together, and in the morning the first thing we saw was each other.”

And (this from the wordsmith and a poet):

“Maybe the fact that we couldn’t communicate in words cushioned us and kept things calm between us.
”

Inevitably, years of decline follow as Mii ages, suffers various ailments, and eventually dies. Much of this part of the book is taken up with getting food into her and getting the waste products out by massaging Mii’s belly, all described in unsparing detail. Inaba cares for her so devotedly that after the vet has more or less given up, Inaba succeeds in keeping her alive and content to the great age of more than twenty.

Mornings With My Cat Mii is engrossing because it is also about Inaba’s own life, her friendships, the failure of her marriage and subsequent loneliness, her dedication to becoming a writer and her feelings about the physical environment she and Mii share. I reflected, as I read, on the different ways people write about their relationships with animals and reveal themselves as they do so. Gavin Maxwell and his relationship with the otters in Ring of Bright Water came to mind. There is the same acceptance of the loved animal as ‘other’. Mii to Inaba is always a cat, not a human, but that does not in any way diminish the depth of Inaba’s feelings for her cat (or Maxwell’s for his otters).

I was also reminded of a Chinese novella, The Tabby-cat’s Tale by Han Dong, which I translated myself (Bridge21 Publications, 2025). In both stories, the cat is a sort of nexus in the narrator’s web of human relationships. The down-to-earth descriptions of appalling fleas, body processes and the infirmities of (feline) old age are also common to both authors. Are we in the west more squeamish? Perhaps. The difference between Mornings With My Cat Mii and The Tabby-cat’s Tale is in the raw emotions, or lack of them, of the author. Han Dong’s take on the tabby-cat in question is respectful but detached, while Inaba’s attachment, and her grief when Mii dies, are unmistakable.

Finally, I found Ginny Tapley Takemori’s translation pleasing and convincing. As a translator myself, I have a particular comment to make, on a point that interests me very much: the way Tapley Takemori keeps Japanese words in the text, without explanation or italics, and mostly without glosses. For instance, in one line, she describes a room as having tatami and a tokonoma. Most non-Japanese speakers would know that tatami is a kind of mat, but a tokonoma? There are two schools of thought about how to deal with words that are specific to the source language and culture: on the one hand, translators can explain or substitute a ‘domesticated’ version; on the other they can leave the words exactly as they are, in the hopes that the reader will do their own research. Tapley Takemori here has opted for the latter, the make-the-reader-work approach. I was intrigued because this is a decision I have to make, for or against, with almost everything I translate from Chinese. Furthermore, leaving foreign words in a translated text is a road less travelled by translators.

However, nowadays it is very easy to track down a word by searching online and so, in a matter of seconds, I found that a tokonoma is ‘a recessed space in a Japanese-style reception room, in which items for artistic appreciation are displayed. In English, a tokonoma could be called an alcove.’ (Thank you, Wikipedia). I am convinced! An alcove, alone, just doesn’t do it. A tokonoma does, and I’ve learnt a new word.

Mornings With My Cat Mii is beautiful (irrespective of one’s feelings towards cats) because Inaba is writing about love, the sort of love one could equally have for a human companion, about her pleasure in Mii’s company and ultimately, about grief. I read it in one sitting, and will likely go back and read it again. I thoroughly recommend it.