Symbols of truncated Toeplitz operators

We consider three problems connected with coinvariant subspaces of the backward shift operator in Hardy spaces $H^p$: 1) properties of truncated Toeplitz operators; 2) Carleson-type embedding theorems for the coinvariant subspaces; 3) factorizations of pseudocontinuable functions from $H^1$. These problems turn out to be closely connected and even, in a sense, equivalent. The new approach based on the factorizations allows us to answer a number of challenging questions about truncated Toeplitz operators posed by Donald Sarason.