Japan’s obsession with and love of cats, Neko, started over a thousand years ago. Cats are an important element in the earliest Japanese fiction (also generally regarded as the world's earliest novel) "The tales of Genji (10th century) and they have been a rich and inspiring source for Japanese writers and artists ever since. The first famous modern literary cat features in the book: I am a Cat, a highly regarded satirical account of Japan’s Meiji Era (1868-1912) written from a condescending cat’s perspective by the acclaimed author Soseki Natsume (1867-1916).  With the Japanese cat population forecast to grow at 4% a year in the next fifty years and some smaller islands having cat populations outnumbering human inhabitants by 8 to 1, modern authors continue to find a ready readership among the country's millions of cat lovers.