Seventy-two-year-old Ingrid, unable to recover after her husband’s death, travels across half the country to visit her relatives with her golden retriever named Roshi. But the trip turns into another blow: frightened by fireworks and colliding with a pack of stray dogs, Roshi bolts and vanishes without a trace. Ingrid returns home alone—now she has to endure two losses at once: her husband and her beloved dog.
But true devotion knows no distances. Roshi decides to find Ingrid at any cost and won’t stop until he returns to the person he loves most. For almost a whole year he walks toward their home—and along the way he meets people who offer help. They’re completely different—settled and broken, hoping for change and those who have long given up on it. And each of them has something to understand thanks to Roshi’s stubborn, kind, cheerful presence. No wonder his name means “old teacher” in Zen Buddhism: he often senses people more deeply than they themselves do, and he always helps those who need it.
Anna Shoiom lives in Barcelona and works in the field of psychosomatic therapy. Her debut novel “Neko Café. The Rules of Cat Life” has been translated into twenty languages. “The Dog That Walked on Stars” — her second novel, already published in fourteen countries — is a story inspired by real events about loyalty, wisdom, kindness, and the idea that happiness is possible.