Released August 27th, 2009 320 pages ISBN: 978-2-35341-069-9 Summary ‘A city where the streets are paved with roses; where an immense crowd communes with equal fervour. It is the monera of ancient times, glowing like a great midsummer bonfire. It is the flame of life and death, the magical fire of Poesy just lit by the Poet in the very heart of the world. […] We had come unaware to the futuristic Grail…’ For more than a year – from September 1919 to December 1920 –, the Italian city of Fiume was a self-governing zone, a pirate haven in the centre of Europe gathering futurists, anarchists, revolutionaries, Dadaists, Bolsheviks, adventurers, revellers, femmes fatales and lost souls. Leading this wild community with hypnotic verve was the intriguing poet Gabriele D’Annunzio, an obscure persona between a warrior and a dandy. Borrowing the pen of his narrator Enzo Cellini, a fictional Italian major, the author brings back to life an episode long blotted out from the official history of the 20th century. From the French trenches of the First World War to the International Brigades in Spain, this story is written in a scathing and often lyrical style reminiscent of war and rebellion diaries. Tristan Ranx manages to involve us deeply in the core of ideals for which the last century – so near, still so remote – saw as much blood as hope flowing. A well-documented and truly inspired first novel. The Fifth Season of the World is Tristan Ranx’s first novel. His manuscript won the Technikart Prize.
