Two Years in the Footsteps of Zamaraï Païkan, Afghan General and Hero

From Joseph Kessel to military personnel, diplomats and humanitarian workers, many French men and women have left a part of themselves in Afghanistan. These distant lands, at the borders of the imagination — dark and luminous, inhabited by people both so close and so foreign — constitute an ultimately chiaroscuro country: mythical, unclassifiable and fascinating, one that has inspired so many literary works.
Far removed from the beaten path, the work that Philippe Cholous presents here is genuinely authentic, original and captivating. The author's approach is more than singular — it is unique. It combines with skill the account of an immersion lived among Afghan fighters, the story of a close relationship with a man of extraordinary personality and destiny, Zamaraï Païkan, and the expression of a subjective experience through which the narrator constantly questions the deeper meaning of the realities he encounters and describes.
Afghanistan is an eminently complex subject, constantly renewed and never exhausted. Zamaraï Païkan is an exceptional, exemplary man, with a destiny so harsh and a personality so rich. The author's experience in Afghanistan is authentic, rare and intense, encompassing a demanding and solitary commitment within the ranks of his Afghan brothers-in-arms. These three lines of force interweave and merge throughout the pages, giving the book a living, dense work that is at once personal and historical. It also carries a philosophical dimension, as facts are observed and analyses conducted without pretension but without concession.
No, in truth, this is not merely another book about Afghanistan. It is also, and above all, an act of sharing, through which the author opens himself up and offers us a new window onto the eternal Afghanistan through the remarkable epic of a hero of our time: Zamaraï Païkan.