The Egghead Republic

The Egghead Republic

Author	Arno Schmidt
Original title	Die Gelehrtenrepublik
Translator	Michael Horovitz
Language	German
Publisher	Stahlberg Verlag
Publication date	1957
Publication place	West Germany
Published in English	1979
Pages	225

The Egghead Republic (German: Die Gelehrtenrepublik), also published as Republica Intelligentsia, is a 1957 novel by the German writer Arno Schmidt.

Plot

It is the year 2008 and Earth has suffered a devastating nuclear war. The American journalist Charles Henry Winer is sent to report from the Western United States and visits two major locations. In a desert of Arizona, he encounters mutants and experimental hybrid creatures. He has a love affair with a female centaur named Thalia. On a floating island at the Pacific Ocean, he visits the International Republic of Artists and Scientists, where residents tell him about how they preserve and transplant human brains.

Reception

Paul West of The Washington Post wrote that the novel is "sheer, complex fun" and offers "Schmidt as his feistiest, his most ingenious, and his most captivating".

Adaptations

The Swedish film The Egghead Republic was shot in 2023. The film is loosely based on the novel and set in Kazakhstan.

See also

• List of nuclear holocaust fiction

Further reading

• Helmes, Günter (1988). "Von 'Formindalls' und anderen 'Hominiden'. Überlegungen zu Arno Schmidts 'Die Gelehrtenrepublik'". In Schardt, Michael Matthias (ed.). Arno Schmidt. Das Frühwerk II (in German). Aachen: Rader Verlag. pp. 216–255. ISBN 3-924007-44-6.