In this fictionalized autobiography, the author draws a true fresco of the Palermo society from 1950 to 1980. The protagonist, Giovanna, daughter of a Sicilian peasant and a young German woman, left orphaned by a mother, is left in a feverfear and subsequently adopted. His moral and ideological formation matures through personal events and important historical events, such as the massacre of the '60 in Palermo, during the Tambroni government, and the contestation of '68.

Many figures accompany Giovanna's sentimental growth: from Nina to Constance, from adoptive parents to the many friends of games and adventures, from her grandfather barber to her shoemaker uncle, a tireless self-taught Communist faith, in love with the Pasolini message. A memorable interweaving of stories in which the freshness of certain evocations mixes with the depth of psychological portraits and the unrenouncability of the vocation to poetic writing as a means of decanting evil and pain.