Fiume on the Adriatic. Until 1918, the port city belonged to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but now Italian freikorps are moving in, led by a famous man. Gabriele D’Annunzio, poet, war hero, and fervent nationalist, declares a new republic. In Fiume, the wildest state in world history is about to be born, with politics as spectacle. Among D'Annunzio's followers is a certain Mussolini. And Guido Baron Keller of Kellerer and Wolkenkeller. The daring aviator, nudist, and utopian is obsessed with an idea from futurist art circles: to destroy the decaying world of yesterday and build a radiant new one, madness is required. So, they set to work. Patients from asylums across Italy are summoned (preferably harmless ones) to become ministers in the new state.
And so, the orderly Cherubino embarks on a journey to the Adriatic, accompanying a friendly ax murderer – toward the dawn of a new era, into the Republic of the Insane.
"The cheerful melancholic Stermann is a great master of the absurd."
Süddeutsche Zeitung
