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On October 26th, 1961, news arrived that Andric had received the Nobel Prize for Literature. While receiving telegrams and congratulations, Andric recalls the past, returning to the time of the Allied bombing and the struggle for the liberation of Belgrade in 1944., when he lived with his friend and lawyer Brana Milenkovic and his sister Kaja.

The Nobel Prize drew attention to the works of Ivo Andric, as well as to his biography. The reputation of the winner of the biggest prize in the World is also the reputation of the country from which he comes. State security services are in charge of ensuring that reputation. Dr. Ivo Andric feels that his entire life so far has been exposed to the views and comments of the public.

The leadership of Yugoslavia views the Nobel Prize as recognition of the country's non-aligned and neutral policy. Dobrica Cosic urges Tito to send Andric a telegram congratulating him. At a press conference, Andric answers journalists' questions about Bosnia and his childhood, evoking memories of his stay in Sarajevo in 1945, his visit to his mother's grave, the ZAVNOBIH assembly, and meetings with Elie Finci and his schoolmate Bora Jevtic.

Preparations for Stockholm are well underway. Together with Vera Stojic, his long-time associate, secretary, and confidante, Andric goes over the schedule of obligations in Sweden, through which their complicated relationship is revealed.

The state continues to work on the reputation of the Nobel laureate and meticulously combs through his past. Andric sets off to Fruska Gora to visit his friend Mladen Leskovac. On the train, a man introducing himself as a journalist hands him a box that once contained a medal left for safekeeping with Brana Milenkovic. In Fruska Gora, he and Leskovac visit churches and monasteries. The line of memory stretches back to 1951, to an exhibition marking the 10th anniversary of the war's onset, where a photograph from the signing of the Tripartite Pact was displayed, an evening at the Writers' Club with Branko Copic, who fell from grace due to "Heretical Tales," and Isidora Sekulic's impressions of the yet unpublished "Prokleta avlija." Then it shifts to 1957, the year Milica's husband Nenad Jovanovic died, and the following year, when Ivo Andric and Milica Babic finally get married.

In Belgrade in 1961, an outbreak of hepatitis is spreading. Andric, along with Koca Popovic, Vuca, and Colakovic, is going over the travel protocol and receiving instructions regarding possible questions about the dissident Milovan Djilas, whose book "Conversations About Stalin" is set to be released in New York. Andric is working with Vera Stoic on a speech for an award ceremony. A postcard from Helena Izikovska in Poland arrives, taking him back to 1914, when he lived with her family in Krakow as a young student. Upon learning of the assassination of Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, Andric leaves Helena and Krakow and travels back home, first to Zagreb and then to Split, where he meets his friends, fighters against Austro-Hungarian occupation, and his youthful love, Evgenija Gojmerac. As a member of the Young Bosnia movement, Andric is arrested by the occupying authorities and taken to a prison in Split.

Jovan Cirilov, the dramaturg of the Yugoslav Drama Theatre, for which Andric was the chairman of the board, seeks permission to dramatize "Prokleta avlija." Andric recalls 1914 and his days as a prisoner, remembering the time he spent in confinement with his mother in Ovcarevo and at the Guca Gora monastery, socializing with the friars. His memories take him to Visegrad in 1917, to the bridge on the Drina where he meets his teacher Ljubomir, and to the hospital of the Sisters of Mercy, where he lies alongside Ivo Vojnovic, with whom he plans a future Yugoslav theatre. In 1919 and 1920, he socializes in Belgrade at the Moscow Hotel during literary evenings with Crnjanski and Bora Stankovic. In 1961, he awaits writing his will and traveling to Sweden to receive the Nobel Prize.

In Belgrade, at the cinema "Cenzura," officials watch Andric at the Nobel Prize ceremony. Andric returns from Stockholm with Milica via Switzerland, a country he refused to flee to at the beginning of the war, choosing instead to endure the war with his people. His memory takes him back to 1941 when he arrives in occupied Belgrade with Milica and Nenad Jovanovic, settling in the apartment of the Milenkovic family. He then faces interrogations by the Special Police and pressure to sign the quisling "Appeal to the Serbian People." Andric refuses to sign the Appeal and tries to distance himself from the occupying authorities. He is confronted with daily horrors: hangings in Terazije, the terror of the Germans and Nedic's forces, and trains filled with Greek Jews. Andric withdraws into writing, but the pressure from the police is intense, and he is again questioned about his Masonic past. In 1942, he visits Ozren with Marko Ristic to see the poet Rade Drainac, who is in a sanatorium. In 1943, Nenad Jovanovic is arrested and taken to a concentration camp. Andric finishes "Na Drini Cuprija." In 1944, there is the Allied bombing of Belgrade and another meeting with Milica.