Italo Svevo was a writer who was largely ignored for most of his life, only finding success with Zeno's Conscience. The documentary explores the modernity of his works and the complexity of his personality.

Italo Svevo was a writer who, during his lifetime, was almost entirely ignored by both literary circles and the public. Only with his third novel, The Confessions of Zeno, which portrays a neurotic liar undergoing psychoanalysis, did he achieve success. The modernity of the work captivated his friend James Joyce, who opened the doors of the Parisian literary scene of the 1920s to him. Psychoanalysis, the banality of everyday life, irony, as well as the use of the stream-of-consciousness technique, were concepts that readers of his time were not yet ready for. Italo Svevo anticipated many themes of modernity. It is no surprise that his contemporaries did not understand him. This documentary paints a portrait of the complex personality of the author and his characters, set against the captivating backdrop of his hometown, Trieste.