A speculative premise in Little Eyes (translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell) by the award-winning Samanta Schweblin is that personal robot pets called kentukis have become an unregulated world-wide fad. A kentukihas two sides to its world – an owner for whom the robot is a pet and a “dweller,” an anonymous party who operates the kentuki remotely and is, in effect, a voyeur in the life of the owner. An owner and a dweller do not know who the other is. Kentukis can’t speak and have to be recharged periodically or the connection to the dweller is permanently severed (the kentuki ‘dies’). Within these parameters, the chapters alternate between several plot lines sited in different parts of the world that involve kentukis and people interacting through them. The literary device of the kentuki creates surprising possibilities for the author to create intensely human stories. Here’s what Kirkus Reviews says:
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/samanta-schweblin/little-eyes/
