A highly inventive and erudite story of coming of age in post-war mainland Europe, from the 2019 Nobel Prize for Literature Laureate. We join the young Austrian teenager Filib Kobal's journey from his home in Carinthia to Slovenia on the trail of his older brother Gregor, who he never knew. He is armed only with two of Gregor's books: a copy book from agricultural school, and a Slovenian - German dictionary, in which Gregor has marked certain words. To piece together an image of his brother, he pours over Gregor's notebook and marked dictionary. In the latter, he discovers new words which translate into timeless images of the earth and its people. Filip can associate himself with this discovery. The resulting investigation of the laws of language and naming becomes a transformative investigation of himself and the world around him.