Copy cats
We’ll Prescribe You Another Cat Syou Ishida, translated by Madison Shimoda (Doubleday, £14.99)
AS unscrupulous politicians scratch the itch of xenophobia with talk of invasions, have they looked at our bookshop shelves lately? They are creaking under a tsunami of feelgood Japanese fiction, largely centred around cats, bookshops, crime, cats, coffee and cats.
Everyone wants in on it. In the last month alone, your reviewer has received – accompanied by press releases shamelessly referring to Japanese authors as “brands” and “trends” – titles including Kei Aono’s Bookstore Girls (with a cat on the cover), Mayumi Nagano’s Diary of a Cat, and – chutzpah hat-trick! – Seishi Yokimozo’s Murder in the Black Cat Café. (Naturally, the original Japanese title didn’t mention crime, cats or cafes.)