Once there was a cat. A female cat.

She and her numerous litters invaded an author’s life, building, and neighbourhood eleven years ago, provoking a sequence of unexpected, funny, and/or dramatic events.
The author, realising this cat might have a much more interesting life than his own, decided to turn those events into a novel. So, amid the chaos of life and Beirut, he and a team of writers developed the project, various serendipities and mishaps reshaping it as days went by. And now, you can dive into the incredible adventures of Katsup and her Roof Cats—available in English, French, and a variation of French, featuring an innovative grammatical set of rules designed to challenge French linguistic sexism.

Let’s take it one step at a time.

Stage 1: The Neutral Point of View and the Human-Feline Documentary Approach

When the author began crafting the intertwined story of this over-prolific cat and the tenants in his building (himself included), he realised that a traditional narrative style—one delving into human thoughts and intentions—wouldn’t suit the approach he had envisioned. So he opted instead for an animal documentary-style narrative that observes both cats and humans objectively, placing the two species on equal narrative ground.
A perspective that circumvents revealing human thoughts and intentions because it would be unrealistic for a narrator to access the inner workings of a cat’s mind. The result is an experimental approach that elevates the “show, don’t tell” principle to a new level.
The prologue of this project found its way into the author’s first published book, Preliminaries, whose pitch is:

“Thirteen first chapters of different stories, to carry you away into thirteen different worlds… and then leave you with your imagination.”

The Cats Project then rested in a drawer for a few years, until...

Stage 2: ChatGPT Piches In

With the advent of ChatGPT, the author and his team decided to explore its potential and limitations in creative writing. The Cats Project, with its strict stylistic guidelines, provided the perfect testing ground for clear, precise prompts.

They first supplied the tool with a full structure and style guide, hoping ChatGPT would generate the entire book. When the AI didn’t meet their expectations, they switched to shorter sections, starting with 50-word prompts and asking ChatGPT to expand them into 500–700 words before editing them down to 200. This process initially yielded good results. Over time, however, the team grew less satisfied with the AI’s contributions and ended up writing most sections themselves, using the AI solely for linguistic polishing or specific questions.

Throughout this journey, the team experimented with several AI tools and found ChatGPT to be the most effective. By the end, they concluded that, while AI tools can be useful in specific contexts, they are not yet capable of producing consistently satisfying creative writing—at least not for their needs.

It is worth noting that the lead author, a non-native English speaker, found these tools invaluable. They demonstrated that with today’s resources, anyone can produce high-quality literary work in a language that isn’t their first.

Stage 3: The French Translation and the Fight Against French Grammatical Sexism

As a bilingual publishing company, Eukalypto faced a unique challenge when translating the novel into French: how to maintain gender-neutral language for the numerous descriptions, including the kittens whose gender was not yet known? While English offers neutral options like “it” for animals and the singular “they” for humans, French words are inherently gendered, with masculine forms dominating sentence structures. Read more about the topic here.

Sticking to traditional masculine-dominated grammar didn’t feel right to the collective of authors. So they developed a new, inclusive grammatical system for gender-neutral French writing instead. This experimental approach became the perfect complement to the Cats Project.

Now, the French edition of Roof Cats is available in two versions: one using traditional French grammar and another one adopting Eukalypto’s innovative, inclusive grammar.

ABOUT THE COVER:

Beirut has a special atmosphere. Especially at night. And Beirut’s rooftops tell the story of the city better than anything else.

On these rooftops, you’ll find everything: water tanks, clotheslines, clusters of TV antennas, mattresses, bed frames, various pieces of furniture, summer terraces, dog houses, and litters of kittens.

Because Beirut is also, undeniably, a city of cats.

To show a nocturnal Beirut of cats, to show rooftop cats in Beirut, a collage was essential, an assembly of more or less eclectic visual identities, because that’s what Beirut is.

The graphic designer gathered the elements and married them with precision. For some, like the moon, several back-and-forth were needed to find the “right balance”. Because you did notice its smile, the moon’s smile, of course?