The Cat and the City

In Tokyo—one of the world's largest megacities—a stray cat is wending her way through the back alleys. And, with each detour, she brushes up against the seemingly disparate lives of the city-dwellers, connecting them in unexpected ways. But the city is changing. As it does, it pushes her to the margins where she chances upon a series of apparent strangers—from a homeless man squatting in an abandoned hotel, to a shut-in hermit afraid to leave his house, to a convenience store worker searching for love. The cat orbits Tokyo's denizens, drawing them ever closer. In a series of spellbinding, interlocking narratives—with styles ranging from manga to footnotes—Nick Bradley has hewn a novel of interplay and estrangement; of survival and self-destruction; of the desire to belong and the need to escape. Formally inventive and slyly political, The Cat and The City is a lithe thrill-ride through the less-glimpsed streets of Tokyo.

Nick Bradley is a graduate of the UEA Creative Writing MA who is currently completing a PhD in Creative & Critical Writing, focusing on the figure of the cat in Japanese literature.