At the time of the phony war, the writer and philosopher Walter Benjamin has been living in Paris for several years. But in 1939, like all German citizens, he is placed in a volunteer worker camp in the town of Nevers. Freed after two and a half months, thanks to several friends who vouch for him, he returns to Paris until the Wehrmacht troops arrive. He escapes and begins a life of wandering through the south of France, first to Lourdes, then Marseille, where he unsuccessfully tries to embark for the USA. His route takes him to the Pyrénées, to the Port-Bou border crossing into Spain where, under the threat of being turned over to the Gestapo, he commits suicide. This account is intertwined with an evocation of the American poet Ezra Pound. Living in Rapallo, in the north of fascist Italy, he blindly shares public opinion. In Rome, the poet meets with Mussolini in order to offer his services, but the Italian leader turns the offer down, convinced that he is dealing with a madman. Arrested in 1944 by the Americans and convicted of treason, he is held captive in an outdoor cage in Pisa before being jailed for 13 years in his own country. Between them, these two antagonistic figures portray the history of a troubled time, and their stories echo into the ideologies, anxieties and hopes of the present day.

Walter Benjamin and Ezra Pound: two individuals whose life paths cross, but who never meet. Although they are opposed in every way, they are both eyewitnesses to the same disaster. The former brings a lucid and critical, or even despairing, gaze to bear on the world; the latter puffs himself up with the illusions of an era blinded by progress and speed. Their personal stories reflect world history. This book includes almost 150 drawings by author.