Caryotype (noun) [log. Caryotype < caryo - "nucleus" < ancient Greek κάρυο(ν) + -type < ancient Greek τύπος]: the depiction, in pairs and in descending order of size, of all the chromosomes of a cell, which is used to diagnose any abnormalities in their structure or number.

N., a thirty-year-old molecular biologist, moves from Athens to Oxford to work on a research program. There, a stranger among strangers, he uses his experiments to find answers to the questions that torment him:

- Is parental affection innate or acquired?

- Is loneliness a choice or an inevitable human condition?

- When does one free themselves from the weight of their first experiences?

The narrative, traversing N.'s caryotype, describes the everyday life of a man who remains an observer of his own life and forgets to live it. Moving without a compass in a city he refuses to get to know, the protagonist confronts his roots, the country he lives in and the country he comes from, language, loneliness, his family and the opposite sex, invented memories and his guilt, the deeply engraved experiences of an "orphan of Ceausescu" - with everything that undermines his effort to confront himself and face his obsessions and certainties.