In the summer of 1977, a girl is born in a mining town in a country under the Soviet Union. In the apartment building where she lives with her family, all employees of the state-run chemical plant, she observes with a mixture of attention and bewilderment the routines of a planned economy. Sometimes a tram takes them to the outskirts, where they cultivate a plot of land allocated by the government and dig a shelter, anticipating a vague threat that the girl senses. Once a year, a train takes her away from the ugliness of the city and to a farm in the village. There, nature sets the rhythm of the days, the animals work, the people struggle to survive, and the insects tell stories of the past. Life unfolds between the city and the countryside while the girl senses that there is another place, a place of which she retains only a pale and intermittent memory. One day she discovers that she is not the only one who knows this place: in the apartment building, someone else shares her secret.

The originality of this novel is rooted in a literary tradition that delves into major contemporary themes through the apparent simplicity of a deceptively childlike voice. In this book, winner of the 54th Barbastro International Novel Prize, Aleksandra Lun explores recent history and the scars of family and society with a strikingly intimate tone, telling a story full of mystery and suspense, uncertainty and promise, that speaks to us of freedom and the brevity of our time here.