Muses with fur and quirks

Freddie Mercury, Erich Kästner, Rosa Luxemburg, Raymond Chandler, Haruki Murakami, they all had one thing in common: a cat. And not only that, to some extent, they were united in their mad love for their cuddly four-legged companions.

Muses have often been the cause and the subject of the stories that make up the library of world literature. But it’s surprising how many times it’s a cat that takes on the role of the muse. Even for really tough men. Ernest Hemingway’s love for cats even went so far that he specifically bred a certain type of cat: the famous Cuban Hemingway cat, sporting one extra toe.

Andreas Schlieper and Heike Reinecke uncovered these stories and anecdotes about the co-existence of writers and felines. Some of it you might have guessed, other things are surprisingly new, much of it will make you chuckle and marvel.