The Dogs is a book about what humans have done to the world and what we have done to ourselves.
Specifically, it is a book about ‘Man’s best friends’ – their origin-myths, and their place in the world before they were co-opted into human society and ideas of pure breeding and dysgenics.
The Dogs also imagines a future where dogs develop the power of speech; led by the non-violent UnderDogs and the more radical Der UberHünd, the animals of the world begin demanding their rights.
ISBN 9781739173029
Published: 1 July, £7.99
Watch the official promo here:
“Michael Stewart’s paean to man’s-best-friend and his unflinching dissection of the human-canine relationship is a brilliantly original book-length sequence: a tour-de-force of visionary imagination that is at once apocalyptic and analytical, compassionate and chaotic, darkly comedic—and deadly serious. In this grenade of a book, Stewart has done for Dog what Ted Hughes did for Crow.”
Steve Ely
“In this inventive collection, Michael Stewart approaches Rilke’s proposition that, with dogs, we have created ‘a soul for which there is no heaven’. Origin stories, recent histories and a future when hierarchies are subverted mingle in an affecting, heady narrative that makes us think about human cruelty. These poems are exciting, exhilarating, moving and profound.”
Helen Mort
Watch a documentary about the book here:
Read an insightful review from Sheenagh Pugh here
“Louis-Ferdinand Celine dragging Alan Garner into a dark wood.”
“A fiery indictment of cruelty, to animals, and also of cruelty to refugees, to poor families queuing at food banks, to all those shackled and crushed by austerity and the swindles and sweat-stealing of capitalism.”
Absolutely brilliant review here of The Dogs by Nick Moss in Culture Matters
Read a piece in the Telegraph and Argus here
Read a poem in the Morning Star here
Substantial overview here
A feature in Bookanista here
In conversation with Kate Fox:
Read a review by William Thirsk-Gaskill here
Read an interview and extracts of the book at Ben Banyard’s blog here
Listen to a podcast here:
Listen to a dog-themed playlist here: