Riccardo Neri

On the eve of the fall of the Ottoman Empire: in the harem of Sultan Abdulhamit II, the odalisque of Italian origin Safiyè dreams of becoming the sultan's first mistress. To achieve her goal, the girl, aided by the eunuch Nadir, is even willing to kill. But when her dream is finally about to come true, her entire world suddenly collapses: the sultan is exiled, the harem is closed, and the odalisques and eunuchs are abandoned to their fate.

The life and times of Armando Feroci, a fortyish year old, who's been everything, a divorced husband, a careless father, an unreliable brother. The story is told in flashback by his friends while Armando has been mysteriously kidnapped in an Arab country by an integralist group and condemned to death.