The work is divided into 6 chapters, the first 5 of them having a similar extension and being called Quaderns (Catalan word for Notebooks) and the last of them being short and entitled «És l'Alba la mare de la humanitat actual?» (Is Alba the mother of current humanity?).

[2] It was brought to television by a very successful TV series produced and displayed by TV3,[3] and in 2015 it was adapted for the big screen with the film Segon origen.

In this novel de Pedrolo tells the story of Alba and Dídac, 14 and 9 years old respectively, who live in a Catalan town called Benaura.

During the following four years, they survive in a destroyed world and face many and varied troubles and difficulties that make them mature quickly.

The novel has been translated to Spanish (1984), to Dutch (1986), to Basque (1989), to Galician (1989), to French (1993), to Romanian (2000), to Portuguese (2004) and to Italian (2011).