At the end of the 1970s in a Naples shaken by earthquakes, a young
college professor lives without any direction, with unruffled skepticism and melancholy,
until the arrival of Micaela, the new Spanish
lecturer at the university, shakes him out of his indolence. Their turbulent
love story will be the thread uniting the main character’s adventures, among
friends and acquaintances, and it will also the point of reference on his trips
to France, England, North Africa, North America or – following the steps of the
vice-consul Eduard Toda i Güell
– China, where the Revolution and Mao Tse-tung’s hat
were already sold as souvenirs to the first tourists.
Factures pagades is not only a bildungsroman but also a rich
gathering of the impressions that mark a lifetime, while the author humorously
settles the score with a time period and the cultural references of a
generation. As one of the characters explains, “Everyone has paid bills and
bills pending payment in the file cabinet of the cuore.”
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