Kdyby ze světa zmizely kočky – Kawamura Genki (2023)

What would you do if you found out you were going to die soon? And what would you do if the Devil appeared before you with an offer to extend your life? However, there's a catch. For every extra day of life, something must disappear from the world. This is exactly the situation the hero of the novel If Cats Disappeared from the World finds himself in, an unnamed postal courier living in a small apartment with his cat named Cabbage. He doesn't get along with his father, and his mother passed away a few years ago. One day, he discovers that he doesn't have much life left due to a brain tumor. However, the Devil appears with an offer that seems hard to refuse. The hero then has to face the choice every day of what else to let disappear from the world in exchange for a piece of his own life. The life-and-death situation forces him to reassess not only the value of everyday certainties but also his own life so far. If Cats Disappeared from the World, a story about what is truly important in human life, has achieved enormous success not only in Japan but also worldwide, where it has been translated into many languages and eventually adapted into a film in 2016.