Trieste, 2019. Ferrante Savorgnano, a young reporter, investigates the disappearance of a computer scientist involved in a mysterious artificial intelligence project, who vanished together with his wife and four-year-old son. At the same time, Ferrante struggles with the tensions caused by his ex-partner, with whom he has a child, and with the constant disapproval of his father, a renowned journalist from the Mani Pulite era who considers him a failure. As the investigation unfolds, Ferrante follows the clues provided by an ambiguous man named Iorio, the advice of Marco — a journalist and old friend of his father — and, above all, the insights of Maria, a PhD student in biological sciences. Through her knowledge of the hidden world of plants, Maria pushes him to see reality from a completely different perspective.

Blending contemporary events — such as the Notre-Dame fire, the arrest of Carola Rackete, and the arrival in Italy of Syrian refugees along the Balkan route — with historical episodes including the disappearance of Ettore Majorana, Bruno Pontecorvo’s defection, and the murder of the Troudec family in France, Quarin adopts the form of the novel to explore the roots of today’s crises. With stylistic clarity and narrative balance, he reflects on issues such as global warming, the promises and dangers of artificial intelligence, and the tensions generated by globalization. Are these crises connected to a form of desire incapable of finding fulfilment? And what does all this have to do with curling? Precise and thought-provoking, yet also ironic and vibrant, The future of the species offers a lucid but not hopeless portrait of contemporary Italy and the modern world. Through elegant, rhythmic prose, Quarin creates a memorable narrator: Ferrante, a “memory foam” protagonist — at once empathetic and opportunistic, an eternal underdog constantly dismissed by others. The novel reaches its conclusion in the mountains between Veneto and Friuli Venezia Giulia, where the vegetal and digital worlds ultimately converge in the discovery of the missing family. There, Ferrante’s own trajectory may finally begin to change.

 

250 pages – Original Language: Italian (Miraggi, 2026)