In Puglia, a region of southeastern Italy, the most serious botanical pandemic of the century is underway: a quarantine bacterium, Xylella Fastidiosa, is killing millions of olive trees, disrupting the landscape, the economy and human relations.
There is still no cure for this attack and the epidemic is advancing northwards, threatening the agricultural territories of the European Union and the Mediterranean basin.
The Era of the Giants narrates the journey of Giuseppe to his father's land, in the plain of monumental olive trees, where the arrival of the epidemic is imminent.
He will have to explain to the elderly farmer how their lives will be turned upside down by this devastating bacterium, previously unknown in Italy.
On his journey to his father, Giuseppe wanders in a post-apocalyptic territory, affected by desertification and climate change. The story of his return back home is intertwined with that of other characters who embody conspiracy, resignation, attempts to save trees and the desire for reconstruction.
The Xylella pandemic is told as a paradigm of an invisible enemy that threatens our existence and at the same time as the ability of human beings to imagine their own future.