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“Gabriel” from Gabriel: A Poem by Edward Hirsch, copyright © 2014 by Edward Hirsch. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

I Am a Cat, by Natsume Sōseki, copyright © 2002 by Aiko Ito and Graeme Wilson. Used by permission of Tuttle Publishing, a division of Periplus Editions (HK) Ltd.

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E-ISBN 978-0-231-54629-4

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Janes, Regina M., author.

Title: Inventing afterlives : the stories we tell ourselves about life after death / Regina M. Janes.

Description: 1 [edition]. | New York : Columbia University Press, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018000804 (print) | LCCN 2018009938 (e-book) | ISBN 9780231546294 (e-book) | ISBN 9780231185707 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780231185714 (paperback)

Subjects: LCSH: Future life.

Classification: LCC BL535 (e-book) | LCC BL535 .J35 2018 (print) | DDC 202/.3—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018000804

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Cover design: Lisa Hamm

Cover image: Amy Weiss/Trevillion Images