The Way of Muri

A light, comical exploration of the significance of wandering and wanderers to the human condition, the wanderer here being the cat, Muri, displaced by war in 1992 from his village near Sarajevo On his journey from his war torn village, Muri the cat travels through Yugoslavia, Austria, Germany, Lithuania, Finland, and Sweden, meeting on the way an unlikely--but helpful--group of creatures, from a sperm whale to a paraplegic mountaineer and a wandering Jew. This is no children's book, but a witty exploration of the human condition through the people and objects Muri meets on his travels. Somewhere in the mix, Boyashov introduces us to two eminent professors, one from Cambridge, one from Geneva, who take opposite views on the question of whether man is in a perpetual and aimless state of wandering, or must always have a goal in mind. Like Sophie's World, this book is intended to be read on two levels--as a narrated story of real (fictional) characters and as an allegory.

Ilya Boyashov is a Russian writer whose books have won or been shortlisted for several major Russian literary awards, including the National Bestseller Prize for The Way of Muri. Amanda Love Darragh was the recipient of the Rossica Translation Prize for her translation of Iramifications.