At a young age, budding scientist Patrick Sorgeloos becomes enamoured with a tiny species of shrimp. He recognises that these little creatures offer opportunities that are overlooked by most others and spends a lifetime travelling the globe with his convictions in tow. Wherever he goes, he impresses upon people the notion that these shrimp could play an indispensable part in solving global food shortages. After countless voyages, he has a chance meeting at age seventy with a writer who develops a fascination for the professor’s extraordinary life. However, it soon becomes clear that the writer is more captivated by intuition and imagination than by facts and science. Amongst the scientist’s account of cold, hard facts, the writer searches and probes for a universal tale of passion, of a sense of wonder that once ignited can never be extinguished, and of the gracious sacrifices made by others for the sake of their loved ones’ passion and wonder.
