When the manager of the village bar absconds, a succession of would-be heirs descend - with disastrous results. One by one, they are seen off by adultery, insolvency or the outraged morals of the general community, until Matthieu and Libero, native sons disillusioned with their philosophical studies, return to take up the reins.

At first they find success, but as lustful, avaricious reality intrudes on their idyll, they too are forced to concede, senses befuddled by pliant women and plentiful liquor, that all empires must eventually crumble.

Wise, comical, dramatic, tragic and absurd, Ferrari's epic in miniature reads like a Corsican One Hundred Years of Solitude, charting the intimate history of an inimitable island with dazzling, skewering precision.