Sergio Prim is a staid, middle-aged geographer. The romantic advances of Brezo Varela, a lively young woman who shares his profession, induce a series of terrifying hallucinations from which he attempts to seek refuge by immersing himself in the quest to map a place in which love never results in disillusionment. A lyrical examination of language, imagination, and desire. Belén Gopegui burst onto the Spanish literary scene in 1993, bowling over critics with her masterful debut La escala de los mapas (The Scale of Maps), which was hailed as a masterpiece. This is her first work translated into English.