Today host Marcela Sulak reads an extract from Asaf Schurr's novel Motti, translated by Todd Hasak-Lowy. In it, Motti imagines the precise details of the death of Laika, a Soviet dog who became the first animal to orbit the earth.

"Did she bark? I have to know if she barked. And how the echo sounded in that narrow space. If it sounded like distant dogs answering her."

Schurr was born in Jerusalem in 1976. He has worked on the editorial staff of the magazine Kahn for human and animal rights and environmental issues, and was awarded the Prime Minister's Prize for Motti (2008).
Text: Motti. Translated by Todd Hasak-Lowy. Dalkey Archive Press (May 3, 2011).
Music: 2001: A Space Odyssey 1968 - Movie Soundtrack (music by Richard Strauss, Johann Strauss & Gyorgy Ligeti)