Written by Antonio Tabucchi, author of Indian Nocturne, one of the most renowned voices in European literature and the foremost Italian writer of his generation, this sublimely questioning, superbly imaginative collection of fragments and quasi-stories moves from impression to association to conjecture. The reader meets a delicate flying creature of ambiguous species-replete with feathers in ochre, yellow, deep blue, and emerald green-in Fra Angelico's vegetable garden; and a revolutionary who is told her incredible future by Mademoiselle Lenormand, a fortune teller from the shadow world.