Dog Boy

Four-year-old Romochka is left alone in a dark, empty Moscow apartment. After a few days, hunger drives him outside, where he sees a large, yellow dog loping past and follows her to her lair on the outskirts of the city. During the seasons that follow, Romochka changes from a boy into something far wilder. He learns to see in the dark, attack enemies with tooth and claw, and understand the strict pack code. But when he begins to hunt in the city, the world of human beings, it is only a matter of time before the authorities take an interest. 'In exploring what it might be like to be a dog from a human perspective, Dog Boy sheds much light on what it is like to be human. Utterly compelling and believable' Yann Martel, author of Life of Pi 'A involving, careful book, marked out by a rare sympathy for the natural world ... It offers, also, a frightening and edifying insight into the barbaric systems of contemporary Russia' Daily Telegraph 'A revelation. In creating such a convincing portrait of pack life, she challenges all our assumptions about what it means to have family, individual identity, to be human. Vivid, visceral and compelling, the shock of the closing moments will linger in your mind for days' Psychologies 'An extraordinary novel. Depicting the bleakness of poverty and homelessness in Moscow's underworld with an unflinching eye, Hornung creates a story that is starkly affecting, in which a boy's adoption by a pack of dogs is a disturbing and bewilderingly beautiful phenomenon ... Lyrical, unsettling and impossible to forget' Attitude