The Scorpions of the Desert 2

A fort in Dancalia February 1941. Attacked by an Italian plane, Loïnsky and his friends Hassan and Akavia become separated. Loïnsky finds refuge in an Italian fort in the Dancalian region, Fort Giuletti. Here he meets two new characters: Lieutenant de La Motte, a camel rider who has chosen to join the resistance, and an Asaimara warrior.

One surreal episode follows another to create a surprising tragicomic fresco, which the various actors (an alcoholic Italian commander, a disillusioned doctor, the French rebels and the beautiful Kismet...) only serve to make even stranger... Mundane conversation in Moulhoulé, February 1941. The African shore of the Red Sea (French Somali

coast). Koïnsky and de La Motte leave Fort Giuletti, and enter an area controlled by the terrible Danakils. Their car jumps out, and the two men reach the Moulhoulé fort. Fanfulla, the fort's Italian commander, the Frenchman, and the Pole begin their famous mundane conversation somewhere between fiction and reality. The main character in this series is Lieutenant Koinsky, a Pole who joined the British army after his country's surrender. We follow him on a series of adventures and encounters (Judittah Canaan, Cush, Stella, etc.) in which we recognize Pratt's style,reminiscent of the adventures of Corto Maltese. Koinsky, however, "is much tougher, more modern, less anarchistic than Corto, which makes him, in a way, closer to us." (Didier Platteau, in the introduction to the book).