Thirteen passengers are stranded at an airport Tokyo, their destination, is covered in snow and all flights are cancelled. To pass the night they huddle by the silent baggage carousels and tell stories. 

Robert De Niro's child, conceived in a laundromat, masters the transubstantiation of matter and turns it on his enemies; a Ukrainian merchant is led by a wingless bird to a lost lover; a Chinese youth with amazing luck cuts men's hair and cleans their ears; a mute Turkish girl is trapped all alone in the house of a German cartographer. 

Told by people on a journey, these are stories about lives in transit. Stories from great cities - New York, Istanbul, Delhi, Buenos Aires that grow into a novel about the dreams and disappointments of people everywhere.