Dancer on the Edge of War

He was a bear who fought as a soldier.

He carried shells through enemy fire.

He drank beer with the men.

Dancer on the Edge of War tells the story of Jan Podolski, a Polish soldier who survived the gulags and the brutal fighting in Italy, and Wojtek, the real Syrian brown bear who became his brother in arms.

From the frozen gulags of Siberia to the blood-soaked hills of Italy and finally to a lonely enclosure in Edinburgh Zoo, this is a tale of friendship forged in hell, of wounds that never heal, and of two souls — one human, one bear — trapped long after the guns fell silent.

Unflinching and quietly devastating, Adam C. Frosh’s novella refuses easy comfort. It asks one brutal question: what remains of a man when even the last innocent thing in his life is taken away?