A man, returning home one evening after work, discovers his wife brutally murdered, lying in a pool of blood. A cat, their cat, a domesticated animal, tells the man the macabre tale of what happened, and in the second chapter, birds at the window continue the tale. This novel of grotesque realism marries separate, delimited worlds: the animal and the human, the here and away, and the wars of yesterday and today.Wajdi Mouawad is a Lebanese-Canadian writer, actor, and director now living in France.Linda Gaboriau is an award-winning literary translator based in Montreal.