Who among us is brave enough to have hope?

Publisher: Picador Africa, Pan MacMillan

Type: Novel 

Date Released: May 2026 

Retail Price: +/- R300

Format: Paperback (387 pages)

An artist, a musician, and a painter walk into a bar. Then, the devil comes to town.

It sounds like the setup to a bad dad joke, but the result is anything but. 

The Dogs of Vivo is Sven Axelrad’s fourth novel. You may recognise Vivo, as it was already introduced in his first and second novels. The fictional town of Vivo is eerily similar to some of the elusive ‘municipalities’ we have here in South Africa: uncontactable municipal offices, laidback rules, and some colourful characters. 

There are also some more mystical elements in Axelrad’s novels. His characters almost always include accountants who can disappear in abandoned quarries to write novels, or a girl could lie her head down on a tome of a book as a pillow in a cemetery protected by a dog named God. (His name is actually Dog, but his owner is dyslexic, and well… you can imagine the rest.)

In The Dogs of Vivo, we meet Arturo, or Art for short. Arturo is a writer and works in a bookshop alongside a dog who is also called Arturo. Aside from managing the bookshop and looking after the dog, his only dream is for Maggie to fall in love with him. Maggie, on the other hand, has her mind on her music and not much else. They have a friend named Felix. He is a painter who has recently become homeless and avoids sleeping on the streets by sleeping with different women every night. His slippers under their bed mean a roof over his head. 

Then, there are also the dogs, of course, but the ones that the title refers to are these three characters: inseparable and madly in love with each other – sometimes platonically, other times romantically. 

The Dogs of Vivo are the closest of friends. 

They’d do anything for each other. 

Even make some unsavoury deals with an unsavoury character. Is he the devil, or just damn good at his job? Who knows.

The three friends meet often at a bar called The Mean Monsoon. If you have read the South African literary journal New Contrast, particularly Volume 52, Issue 207, you will know this setting. Axelrad published a short story that is set at this bar. When I read that short story initially, I really hoped that we would see more of the setting – it is a place of absolute wonder and terrible sorrow. The neon lights, the questionable characters. There was something new about the setting, but the bar still felt strangely familiar. It is like every bar you’ve been to, while simultaneously being like nothing you’ve ever seen before. Therein lies the rub.

The bar, as is the case with all bars in Axelrad’s imagined worlds, is governed by The Zodiac of Bars Everywhere, an astrological alignment, much like the sun and moon signs we all know, through which the fate of the patrons and the progression of their evening is decided.

Among them are The One for the Road, The Forgotten Car Keys, The Communal Lighter, or, my personal favourite, The Right Song at the Wrong Time. These elements work in cahoots with one another and play out in a sequence of events unique to each of the bar’s patrons. 

Including our young, naive trio.

It sounds like a high-level concept, but don’t let that put you off. I promise it will all make sense as you read the novel. 

Story aside, Axelrad has it – the mythical quality we are all in search of with our favourite authors. 

Sure, he has the look: the white t-shirt, jeans, and tattoos of a gal’s dreams – but there is more than meets the eye.  Axelrad is laser sharp in his observations of people and feelings. His writing unpeels the layers you forgot you had within yourself. 

His prose is lyrical, personal, and highly addictive. 

It’s always tough for me to put down a book of his.

There is a great divide in the world today. The things we consume further perpetuate that. It is often us versus ‘them’. It is as if the media, film, television, and even the books we consume have a habit of turning us against one another. Axelrad’s novels do the opposite. When you find a book like this that makes you sit up, pay attention, and feel genuine empathy and compassion, it is not something that you should ignore.

More than this, his books, though sometimes dark in theme, are always laced with one crucial element: hope. I interviewed Sven recently for Jonathan Ball Publishers’ Pagecast, South Africa’s biggest book podcast that offers insider interviews with recently published authors. I had him sign my notebook with the questions in it (I’m a nerd, I’m not sorry either) and, without even realising he had done it, he signed it with my favourite quotation from the book: “Who among us is brave enough to hope? Let us be, together.”

This meant a lot to me. To be seen and recognised by a writer I respect this much was something I won’t easily forget.

Then, there is music, another special theme that runs through Axelrad’s novels. 

In The Dogs of Vivo, we go one step further. We get to have a full-on conversation with the ‘ghost’ of Joni Mitchell. 

This is just another example of the absolutely whacky, absurd, utterly delectable stories that Axelrad tells. 

I cannot imagine his books without the music, and I can’t believe I’d ever want to either. It adds a dimension to the story that allows you to fully transport yourself into the world that he has created. If you look at his social media, you’ll find a playlist that he has curated to be listened to alongside your read of The Dogs of Vivo. 

I highly recommend you give it a listen. 

Axelrad’s book will present you with a plethora of emotions. The addition of the playlist will break your heart, then make it whole.

There are a few writers I admire as much as I admire Sven Axelrad. 

Whatever he writes next is almost guaranteed to be something special. I very much look forward to it. 

So should you.

Riley Henry-Herbert in conversation with at Franschhoek Literary Festival:

Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWBaQ_YlROE