Melania Mazzucco grew up in a part of Rome on the outskirts, not the part people usually associate with the beautiful city. The white Fiat 500 her father bought for the family became an important part of her life.

Leaving the outskirts of Rome, Annalena goes to a middle-class neighborhood where she meets professor and writer, Alessandro Piperno. He talks about what it was like growing up there and about his identity as a writer.

Alessandro explains some things about the characters in his books and tells a story about when he won the Strega award. The Strega Award is the most important Italian literary award. It gets its name from one of its creators, the owner of the company producing Strega, a brand of an amaro (after-dinner, digestive bitters).

Annalena continues her conversation with Piperno in his favorite restaurant. They look at some photos from his past while they wait for their meal to be served.

Alessandro Piperno comes from a mixed Jewish family and recounts how he learned, at an early age, to cherish the relationship between Jerusalem and Rome, where Christianity and Judaism blend. Thus we come to the end of this episode about the region of Lazio.

The documentary follows journalist Annalena Benini on a journey through Italy discovering writers in the places that shaped them. The first stop is Naples, told through Valeria Parrella: an intense and complex city, where landscape, memory and daily life intertwine with literature and the identity of authors.

Valeria Parrella recounts her deep and complex bond with Naples, a city that is all about language, identity, and memory. Through Almarina, a Naples that is 'wonderful and terrible' emerges, but also a place of freedom, growth, and hope.

Author Valeria Parrella talks about the connection between her novel Almarina and various locations within Naples: Nisida (a volcanic islet that houses a juvenile detention center) and Bagnoli (a seaside neighborhood of Naples). What emerges is the portrait of an intense and contradictory city, marked by working-class identity, the sea, and the reality of juvenile prison.

Valeria Parrella talks about her intense and contradictory bond with Naples and the neighborhood she lives in. The full-time innovative Donna Assunta school overlooks the sea, but faces Nisida, the juvenile detention center. Naples, she says, is not a city you can just live in and ignore, and has become for her an inexhaustible source of literary inspiration.

Valeria Parrella talks about her relationship with Naples and her way of writing about it, based on direct observation and listening to people, far from the usual stereotypes. Her writing stems from an "intermediate" point of view, close to everyday reality.

Rosalba lives in Pontedera and shows us her favorite park. There is a sculpture there that reminds her of a woman-cat.

Rosalba was a French teacher who has been retired for about a a year. She now spends her days writing stories and cultivating her passion for photography.

Serena is near one of the beaches of her town, Maratea, where she lives with her family and she tells us a few things about herself.

Martina has almost completed her degree at the university, which will qualify her to work in the juvenile courts. She would like to evaluate the situations and problems of kids, especially immigrant minors, who have trouble in school and in their social lives, and to help them adjust. Follow the interview by Serena.

Falling in love doesn't follow scientific rules. Silvana and Luciano tell us about how they met and their plans, now that they are of a certain age.