One - Dog Man

One-Man Dog isn’t really the story of a man and a dog. There’s a pup in it. And several men in it aged ten or thereabouts. But it is mostly an affectionate recapturing of the perilous, yet infinitely delightful world of childhood, done so vividly, with such warmth, one can only conclude that at some time or other Ahmad Kamal must have been a small boy himself.

Let the reader be warned, however, that One Man Dog is not a memoir in which the keen edges of reality have been buffed smooth by time. Everything is sharply intact: all the desperate adventures, the disastrous fights, the running skirmishes with parental authority, the frightening brushes with the law, the feverish forays into the world of finance and big business, the ecstatic yearnings that are part of growing up — all are here, in a story to make you look excitedly back into the past and catch your breath at the miracle of your own survival.

Ahmad Kamal was born on a Colorado Indian reservation in 1914 of Turco-Tatar parents who were forced into exile by the Tsar for participation in the 1905 revolution. Kamal's genetic makeup imprinted all his endeavors, be they as deep sea diver, combat pilot, horseman, warrior, or as exponent of national self-determination. Kamal commanded the Basmachi Rebellion in Turkistan in the 1920s and 1930s, supported the independence of Indonesia and Algeria, and was commanding general of the Muslim liberation forces of the Union of Burma in the 1980s. Though he devoted his entire life to the independence of his fatherland from Russian and Chinese yokes, he died a month short of the collapse of the USSR. Japan's press, Asahi Shimbun marked his existence, stating: "Ahmad Kamal lived like a Samuraiand died like a Samurai."