The Worm In The Apple

Fortunato Plastina is of Calabrian origin. He is sixteen years old when he leaves his family and his native country, to discover a Switzerland in full economic growth, a rich Switzerland, provider of employment.

From the farm boy of 1959, to the businessman mentioned in the newspapers in 1990, what an adventure. There was of course the time for sacrifices and humiliations, an obligatory passage that every immigrant crosses with more or less luck, then social advancement. Fortunato has done a thousand jobs, touched on various fields, always eager for new experiences. But his last experience ends in a crushing failure, leaving him completely ruined. So thirty-six years later, in the Switzerland he loves so much and which has become his adopted homeland, he finds himself at square one.

Bafoué, wounded in his self-esteem. Fortunato is not a man to let himself be pushed around, this affront came from above, he decides to relate it in this book «which says everything». It is this story that is told to us throughout the pages.

The oldest democracy in the world gets tangled up in its cobwebs, due to a lack of agility, it falls behind, its morose people become demotivated and its surface varnish creaks. It would be time to give him a lick of paint, to fill the holes, and quickly, because "The worm is in the apple"

In this book, it is not the dream country of Switzerland where one no longer dreams, which is put on the spot but some of its institutions.

Through the characters of this story, questions are raised, leading us to reflect on certain problems of our time (racism, emigration and during immigration) to focus on certain universal themes such as those of the family, friendship, commitment to finally address the issue of work, and more generally the question of the future of a country on the threshold of the third millennium.

As for the characters in this story (Fortunato, Gervito, Françoise, Justin Pernod), it is only a matter of 'LIVING' for them, and living as best as possible. We are once again faced with the eternal quest for happiness that drives men forward.