Scattered love by Maylis Besserie

William Butler Yeats’ ghost has suddenly arisen because diplomatic documents long kept secret have resurfaced, casting doubt on the contents of the coffin brought back into Ireland for a state funeral. Where did the poet’s body go? Does he still hover, as he wrote, ‘somewhere above the clouds’? What remains of our loves and our deaths, if not their poetry?

Emerged from his grave, he recounts his thwarted love with Maud Gonne, a story that merges with that of the independence movement of Ireland, of which they were both emblematic actors.