A monument in front of Antwerp’s cathedral shows Nello and Patrasche, the heroes of the 19th-century novel A Dog of Flanders, sleeping under a cobblestone blanket

A statue has been unveiled in front of Antwerp Cathedral depicting a young boy and his dog, in tribute to the stars of a beloved 19th-century novel that found fame in Japan before it became known in Flanders, where the story is set.

A Dog of Flanders was written by British author and animal rights activist Marie Louise de la Ramée, under the pen name Ouida. It tells the story of young orphan Nello, who grows up with his grandfather in a village near Antwerp.

One day, Nello and his grandfather rescue a dog who’s been beaten nearly to death, and Nello and the dog, Patrasche, become inseparable. Though the book is set in Flanders, it’s only relatively recently that it’s found fame in the region.

After reading about the book in the author’s obituary in 1908, a Japanese diplomat in New York sent a few copies of it home. The translation is now one of the best-known children’s stories in Japan, having become required reading for schoolchildren, and the anime adaptation in the 1970s was a nationwide hit.