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Published 24 February 2016

ISBN 9781922182845

Format Paperback

Extent 320pp

AU Price $14.95

NZ Price $17.99

Categories:

Dog Boy: Text Classics

Name: Dog Boy: Text Classics
Price: 14.95 AUD
ISBN: 9781922182845

Eva Hornung

Introduced by Yann Martel

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Booktopia

Winner of the Prime Minister's Literary Award, 2010

Introduced by Yann Martel

Abandoned in a big city at the onset of winter, a hungry four-year-old boy follows a stray dog to her lair. There in the rich smelly darkness, in the rub of hair, claws and teeth, he joins four puppies suckling at their mother's teats. And so begins Romochka's life as a dog.

Weak and hairless, with his useless nose and blunt little teeth, Romochka is ashamed of what a poor dog he makes. But learning how to be something else…that's a skill a human can master.

Fortunately—because one day Romochka will have to learn how to be a boy.

The story of the child raised by beasts is timeless. But in Dog Boy Eva Hornung has created such a vivid and original telling, so viscerally convincing, that it becomes not just new but definitive: Yes, this is how it would be.

‘Astonishing…a world of terrifying tactility—of teeth, teat, fur and claw…The novel is a strange, sombre, sobering triumph.’ Sydney Morning Herald

‘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. Extraordinary, compelling and utterly believable.’ Yann Martel

‘Grotesque, moving and utterly astonishing.’ Herald Sun

‘Dog Boy is rich in interest and ideas…Hornung is wonderful on the physical characteristics, both beautiful and repulsive, of animals and children’ Age

Published 24 February 2016

ISBN 9781922182845

Format Paperback

Extent 320pp

AU Price $14.95

NZ Price $17.99

Categories:

Awards & recognition

Prime Minister's Literary Awards

Winner • 2010 • Fiction

ALS Gold Medal for Australian Literature

Shortlisted • 2010 • ALS Gold Medal

Australian Book Industry Awards

Shortlisted • 2010 • Australian Literary Fiction Book of the Year

Victorian Premier's Literary Awards

Shortlisted • 2009 • The Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction

Praise for Dog Boy: Text Classics

‘Hornung’s writing is beautiful and assured: her descriptions of this dog boy life are vivid and visceral and sensual and utterly compelling. She also writes about the dogs with breath-taking beauty—the penultimate climactic scene will squeeze your heart. Dog Boy is an ambitious concept, magnificently realised—you’ll never look at a dog in the same way again.’
Sunday Telegraph

‘A grim and primal story of unnatural selection…This tough new novel represents an important shift in emphasis and a broadening of her vision as she continues her forensic investigation into the human condition.’
Australian

‘Dog Boy is a tour de force of imaginative empathy. Eva Hornung is neither Russian nor canine but her deep engagement with languages, both human and animal, makes it possible for her to inhabit these utterly original characters on an almost molecular level. If the Story of Edgar Sawtelle convinced us that dogs have inner lives, Hornung reveals to us their very souls. This is a wonderful, intense and profoundly moving book from a writer of rare gifts.’
Geraldine Brooks

‘Dog Boy is a wonderful novel, a tour de force.’
John Burnside, The Guardian

‘Completely believable…beautiful.’
The Times

‘This is an amazing feat of imaginative power on Hornung’s part, a book that traverses every sensation from delight to utter heart-break...The true strength of this remarkable book is that Hornung encourages us to question where exactly the border between animal and human is located.’
Canberra Times

About the authors

Eva Hornung

Eva Hornung, formerly published as Eva Sallis, is an award-winning writer of literary fiction and criticism: her first novel, Hiam, won the Australian/Vogel Literary Award in 1997 and the Nita May Dobbie Award in 1999. Her novel The Marsh Birds won the Asher Literary Award 2005 and was shortlisted for the Age Book of the Year 2005, NSW Premier’s Literary Award and Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. Hornung’s acclaimed Dog Boy was shortlisted for numerous prizes and won the Prime Minister’s Literary Award in 2010. The Last Garden won the SA Premier’s Prize for Literature in 2018. She lives in rural South Australia.

Yann Martel - Introducer

Yann Martel is the author of a short story collection, The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios, and of five novels, Life of Pi (for which he was awarded the 2002 Man Booker Prize), Self, Beatrice & Virgil, The High Mountains of Portugal and Son of Nobody. Life of Pi was adapted for the silver screen by Ang Lee, garnering four Oscars. Martel also ran a guerilla book club with Stephen Harper, sending the former prime minister of Canada a book every two weeks for four years. The letters that accompanied the books were published as 101 Letters to a Prime Minister. Martel lives in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, with the writer Alice Kuipers and their four children.

Also by Eva Hornung

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Rights for Dog Boy

Rights held: ANZ