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Zhupansky's publishing house continues to introduce the Ukrainian reader to the French poet, actor, playwright and theatre theorist Antonin Artaud (1896-1948), an extraordinary figure of French literature, theatre and cinema of the 20th century.

The first part of the publication presents a poetic and philosophical novel-biography of the Roman emperor Heliogabalus.

Thinking about matter and consciousness is combined with comparisons of cosmogonies and religions, metaphysical reflections on love and freedom, unity and separateness, poetry and anarchy.

Amidst the desert landscapes of Syria, we are immersed in the atmosphere of the ancient city of Emesa with its mysterious cults and rituals, where the deities of the Sun and the Moon, the masculine and the feminine merge. It is in these cults of the religion of the Sun that the primordial anarchy and freedom that became defining in Heliogabalus' life is hidden. And although the author depicts a real figure from the history of Ancient Rome, Heliogabalus himself appears as one of Antonin Artaud's alter egos, as an emblematic figure of his Theatre of Cruelty.

The second part opens with Artaud's landmark essay "Van Gogh, Self-Murdered by Society", which won the Saint-Beuve Prize. Other 'doubles' of Artaud are presented in letters about Gerard de Nerval, Lautrec, Baudelaire and Coleridge.

The publication ends with an afterword by Roman Osadchuk "Antonin Artaud's Doppelgangers". All works by Antonin Artaud in this edition are translated into Ukrainian for the first time.