Mathias Énard0.0 Francis Mirkovic, a French born Croat who has been working for the French Intelligence Services for fifteen years, is travelling by train from Milan to Rome. With him he has a briefcase, whose contents he is selling to a representative of the Vatican, which contains information about the violent history of the Zone: Spain, Algeria, Lebanon and Italy, that have become his speciality. Over the course of a single night, Mirkovic reflects on his memories of the tragedies and violence that has occoured there and his own part in it as well as on the woman he loves.
