Set in the near future, the novel depicts a once fertile and lively southern province that is now desolate. The landscape, stretching from sunburnt coastlines to the wild mountains of the Apennines, is unrecognisable, but fragments of language, names and places survive. Against this backdrop, the novel reflects on the legacy that humanity will leave for future generations. Memory, knowledge, loneliness, love and death are interwoven themes in this polyphonic work, which questions the concept of permanence and the ability of the imagination to create a new world, one that is far removed from the confines of endless, unchanging contemporaneity.