Dwala: A romance

"Dwala: A Romance" by George Calderon is a story set in the early 1900s that follows Colonel, an ape-like being with human qualities like speech, and his special bond with an American circus trainer. They live in Borneo, where they talk and share meals with a group of monkeys and each other. The Colonel grows curious about cities and human ways of life, even though he lives far from them. The story examines what it means to be civilized, how people find their place in the world, and the differences between living in the wild and being part of human society. As they plan to leave their forest for London, the story hints at big changes and asks questions about what it really means to be human.