A mesmerising and enigmatic collection of short stories, haunted by the horrors of war, never before translated into English, and divided into two halves: journeys and flowers. A traveller embarks on a search for what lies beneath reality and finds villages where the dead walk at solstice, silkworm-like women live in cocoons, and a thousand men in gleaming armour play at being soldiers. Thirty-eight stories of invented flowers follow: absurd, lush and dreamlike, they capture different truths of humanity.