Belka, Why Don't You Bark?
(Beruka, Hoenainoka?)

ENGLISH / Michael Emmerich 

FRENCH / Patrick Honnoré 

RUSSIAN / Ekaterina Riabova

Bungei Shunju (2005)(hc)

(2008)(pb)

In 1943, the Battle of Attu took place in the Aleutian Islands in the north ocean. In this battle 2500 members of the garrison of Japan, who had occupied the island the year before, fought until death. The island was retaken by the U.S. troops, and the Japanese troops evacuated from nearby Kiska Island to avoid another tragedy. This is when the Japanese army left four war dogs on the island. The four dogs, namely Kita, Seiyû, Katsu and Explosion, understood that they had been cast away. On the deserted island, Seiyû and Explosion, both of whom were pure-bred shepherds, mated and had a litter of four puppies. Katsu was killed by a landmine. The other dogs, including the newly born puppies, were picked up by U.S. forces, and all seven of them departed from the island. They repeatedly bred and cross-bred, and their countless offspring spread across the world in "the century of wars," in which World War II was followed by the Korean War, the Soviet-U.S. space-race under the Cold War, the Vietnam War and the Afghan War. Under the Russian space program, two dogs, Belka and Strelka, strapped into pressurized suits, spent some time in space prior to the launching of a manned spaceship. Then, in the 1990's, an old man who was very good at controlling dogs got acquainted with a Japanese girl who was the daughter of Japanese mafia boss and taken hostage by Russian mafia, and---.This novel is a "super chronicle of the world" with two lines of stories that are told in parallel: one is a chronicle of the dogs, between 1943 and the1990's, starting from the four dogs as the earliest ancestors cast away on a deserted island during World War II; the other is an exchange between a Japanese girl held captive in a small corner of Russia and a mysterious old man.