On this island, citizens live by the whims of the sea and wind, as well as cats that have always come and gone as they please. One day, the cats inexplicably disappear. The administration sends new ones, of a rather particular kind... While some villagers accept this unexpected cohabitation, others rebel. In the tradition of George Orwell's 1984, this first novel depicts with finesse and irony the hold an arbitrary power can have over a small community.