Palos, Spain, August 1492. Nuño is 16 years old, and he is a crab. Or at least that is the nickname given him by his mother, who died a few years earlier, and of whom Nuño retains a memory that is both pain and light. Although he lives on the sea, Nuño has never wanted to sail it, and prefers to watch it by clinging to the land, just like crabs. Until, through a series of circumstances as unfortunate as they are accidental, he has to board a ship whose destination he ignores.

It is the Santa María, aboard which Christopher Columbus will discover – by accident and by mistake – the New World. While Nuño will realize, he who knows nothing about navigation, that he shares the bewilderment with his much more experienced companions: all frightened by that crazy and never-before-attempted venture.Having learned to read and write from his mother, Nuño became Columbus’ scribe, and spending hours listening to him he felt growing enthusiasm for the big dreams of this unpredictable visionary explorer. Through Nuño’s gaze, we travel through the most important journey in human history: the endless days before sighting land, to the discovery of a new world, a new humanity, a new, different possibility of in tend life.

In this Earthly Paradise, Nuño will learn how much ferocity, how much greed can motivate men’s choices, but he will also learn about the irresistible force of love, which will overwhelm him until it turns his days and nights upside down.