Synopsis

Rome, 1911. On the eve of changes that will transform Europe, Giorgio, a journalist from a bourgeois family, abandons himself to the reassuring inertia of a façade of socialism. His encounter with an independent young woman will distance him from what is most dear to him and push him down an uncomfortable path, the only path to happiness. Will he be able to seize the opportunity for a once-in-a-lifetime love, unique in its intensity? Through a story with the freshness of spontaneous narration, Bianca, an emancipated young woman who has chosen to live a militant communist life, keeps an intimate diary. A serious illness and the unexpected eruption of a passion as poignant as it is unlikely will lead her to question her most firmly held beliefs. Giorgio, who after fifty years returns to his past, thus confronts the confessions of a young woman with a dramatic destiny, with a shift in perspective reminiscent of Kurosawa's masterpiece Rashomon. At the end of the novel, as an original afterword, an interview with Pif on the topic of "choose or pretend nothing is happening?"