In 2011, Japan suffered the strongest earthquake in the country's history. It was followed by a huge tsunami that claimed thousands of lives. In the chaos, a dog named Tamon was separated from his owner. Now homeless Tamon has to walk hundreds of kilometers and meet many people to get to his family. On his way, Tamon temporarily finds new owners: a prodigal son, whose mother gradually forgets the name of her own child, an emigrant thief with a big and kind heart, a married couple, in whose love the cracks can no longer be patched up, a wise old man who is looking for a peaceful death, and a boy who wants to finally find his happiness. For each of them, the dog becomes someone special: a savior, a partner, a toy, a friend, a protector. But who will Tamon become for us? Seishu Hase’s novel “The Boy and the Dog,” which has already been sold more than 300 thousand times in Japan, received the prestigious Sanjugo Naoki Literary Prize in 2020. Within a year, nine countries immediately bought the rights to publish this story. Seishu Hase is best known for his yakuza novels, which have been made into several successful films in Southeast Asia. “The Boy and the Dog” strays a little from the author’s favorite theme, touching on life stories that touch the soul of each of us: extinguished love, fatal illness of loved ones, rejection of society, poverty. But in this story there is a place for unsinkable hope for the best and kindness that are inherent in a person, regardless of his upbringing, education, social status or state of mind.