A year after the death of his father, Manuel Astur set off on a journey from the north of Italy to the south, in a long tradition of writers who documented their adventures in the bel paese and created a new literary genre.

Italy offers the traveler images of extraordinary beauty that have survived centuries, an immanence that renders fleeting the course of life of any individual.

Astur uses writing to dive into his family’s past, to learn from the great masters who took this path before him, to reconcile with his pain and his deepest fears, to celebrate his father, and to find instants of great happiness and astonishment amid the deepest melancholy and mourning. A profoundly moving book, beautiful and sharp, about love, loss, and the power of the word as the ground of meaning and, in the same way, of the joy of living.