Book One · The Stray Universe
The
Stray
An Ibiza Fable
A poetic Ibiza fable about a stray dog, loss, belonging, and the freedom of being truly your own.
A poetic Ibiza fable about a stray dog, loss, belonging, and the freedom of being truly your own.
Pau is a young dog abandoned without drama on the red soil of Ibiza. No goodbye, no explanation — just the moment when the pattern breaks and nothing replaces it. What follows is not a rescue story. It is something rarer: a story of becoming.
Through the island's rosemary scrub, its limestone cliffs, its salt-flat silences and sunset drums, Pau moves with quiet intelligence — encountering a cat who teaches trust without proximity, two men who offer belonging without ownership, and an island that hums with something older than memory.
The Stray is a short literary fable written in precise, atmospheric prose. A book about instinct and grief, about the invisible energy of place, about what it means to be truly, freely, irreducibly yourself.
The Stray speaks to many kinds of hearts. Here are four of them.
Pau is written from the inside — his perceptions, his instincts, his grief. If you have ever loved a dog, you will recognise something true and rare in every page.
Not the island of clubs or clichés. The Ibiza of red soil, carob trees, salt flats, limestone silence, and sunset drums at Benirrás. The island as a living, breathing presence.
A meditation on belonging, loss, memory, and what remains when everything changes. For those who read slowly, who want a book that thinks alongside them.
Spare, atmospheric, precise. Written in a voice that sits between animal fable and island meditation. A book for readers who value language that earns its beauty.
Abandonment Without Drama
He was young, but no longer small. One day the ground smelled of one place only — warm and repeating. Then the smells changed. Not suddenly; just enough that when he stopped and turned back, the path no longer answered him.
He waited. Waiting was something he already knew how to do. The place where he waited was ordinary. People passed without looking; cars passed without slowing. The day moved forward as it always did. Nothing marked the moment as important.
Eventually, hunger arrived — not sharply, but like a reminder. He stood up. From that moment on, he belonged to no one. Simply because the pattern had broken and nothing had replaced it.
—
That first night, sleeping in the dry rosemary, his dreams were sharp and metallic. He dreamed of the "Click." The click of a seatbelt, the click of a gate, the click of a key. These sounds were the punctuation marks of his old life.
For representation, rights, translation, media, or collaboration enquiries, please get in touch.
The Stray is the first title in The Stray Universe and is available for wider editorial, translation, and publishing conversations.
Marco Meneghini
Literary agents · Publishers · Translation rights · Media · Collaborations
Rights / Representation / Media / Collaboration — The Stray
The Stray is the first book in an ongoing literary series. Each book in The Stray Universe stands on its own — a different character, a different landscape — but all share the same sensibility: attention, atmosphere, place, and lives usually left at the edge of the frame.
If you want to follow it as it grows, the best way is to be there from the beginning.
A dog. An island. The moment the pattern breaks.
Available NowA new story. A new voice. The universe continues.
In ProgressEach book a world of its own. All of them connected.
FutureJoin the reader list for preview chapters of Book Two, occasional notes from the author, updates on new releases, and early access to The Stray Universe as it grows.
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Welcome to The Stray Universe. You'll hear from Marco when there's something worth saying — a preview chapter, a new release, or a note from the island.
Verified readers across Europe on what The Stray did to them.
“One of those rare books that stays with you long after the last page. Beautifully written, deeply atmospheric, and unexpectedly powerful. You can feel the place, the silence, the emotions. Short, intense, and unforgettable.”
“La scrittura di Marco Meneghini fluisce lieve ma ogni parola è colma di significato. Già alle prime pagine mi sono commossa entrando in sintonia con Pau.”
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A short book with a long resonance. The kind of story you carry with you — and press into the hands of people you love.
"To be a stray is not to be lost.
It is to be the only thing in the world that is truly found."
— Marco Meneghini