Félix Ventura engages in an unusual profession: he trades in invented pasts. His clients are ministers, landowners, and generals. What they need is a glamorous yet well-documented history. Ventura creates new family trees, procures photographs of illustrious ancestors, and invents happy memories. But one night, a stranger comes to his house. The request: a new identity. Ventura's creation captivates the stranger so much that he embarks on a quest to find the figures of his purchased past. This award-winning novel, with its enchanting language, journeys through the shifting landscapes of memory and history, into a world where the truth changes from one moment to the next.