Felisberto, an old Black man, sits by the fire and tells stories of his extensive family: of the over three hundred years old matriarch Samima, who, although dead, is very much present as a living spirit among her descendants. He speaks of Zeca, the limping man, who can forge an arrow capable of even killing the devil. But Felisberto also shares tales of white people. For example, Dom Estefano and Dona Elvira, for whom he was a servant, and of the piano that stood abandoned at the harbor and began to play by itself one night. A grand narrative by Africa expert Henning Mankell about African people and their encounters with Europeans, straddling the boundary between dream and reality, myth and political history.