Aigou
A robot dog with feelings has twenty-one days to win over its new owner
Saar Schokking, who distrusts artificial intelligence, receives an unexpected gift from her father: a robot dog. It is an Aigou, ready for an adventure with a new owner. It can sit, give a paw and cuddle... as well as think, feel and yearn. Saar has twenty-one days to decide whether to keep it; if she doesn't, it goes back to the manufacturer.
Day by day, the dog tells its own story. It observes Saar, her mother, her friends and her neighbour Johnny with a sharp, bewildered eye, and longs for what it cannot ask for: recognition, a home, a name of its own. Its voice is dry and anything but sentimental: 'Normally, as a dog, you would bark a little, lick her face or put a paw on her arm. I'm not about to do any of that. She hasn't even completed my registration yet.'
When Saar's mother calls the Aigou 'Bobby', he finally has a place in Saar's life. But the harder he tries to belong, the more his devotion turns into control. As the trial period draws to a close, Saar learns of technical irregularities, and Bobby's fate hangs in the balance.
Aigou is an intense, witty novel about what happens when something designed to give unconditional love ends up mastering the art of possessiveness.
Debut novel by Sarah van Vliet, a linguist (PhD on proper names and personal pronouns) who left academia to become a writer
Winner of the 2024 Grote Lowlands Schrijfwedstrijd short story competition
Selected for the Literaire Boekentas (CPNB/Harper's Bazaar), 2026
Sarah van Vliet (Haarlem, 1972) earned her doctorate in linguistics researching proper names and personal pronouns. Having spent years working as a university researcher and lecturer, she traded the world of academia for literature. She has published essays and stories in literary magazines and won the 2024 Grote Lowlands Schrijfwedstrijd short story competition. 'Aigou' is her debut novel.