<p><b>''One of the greatest European prose writers'' Philip Roth</b><br><br>In the autumn of 1965, Bohumil Hrabal bought a weekend cottage in the countryside east of Prague. There, until his death, he tended to an ever-growing, unruly community of cats. This is his confessional, tender and shocking meditation on the joys and torments of his life with them; how he became increasingly overwhelmed by the demands of the things he loved, even to the brink of madness.<br><br>''Dark and strange ... It begins with warmth and fluffiness, but soon descends into Dostoevskian horror'' <i>Daily </i><i>Telegraph</i><br><br>''The Czech master exposed the animal within us'' <i>New Yorker</i></p>