  We show that a family of minimal surfaces of general type with p_g = 0,
K^2=7, constructed by Inoue in 1994, is indeed a connected component of the
moduli space: indeed that any surface which is homotopically equivalent to an
Inoue surface belongs to the Inoue family.
  The ideas used in order to show this result motivate us to give a new
definition of varieties, which we propose to call Inoue-type manifolds: these
are obtained as quotients \hat{X} / G, where \hat{X} is an ample divisor in a
K(\Gamma, 1) projective manifold Z, and G is a finite group acting freely on
\hat{X} . For these type of manifolds we prove a similar theorem to the above,
even if weaker, that manifolds homotopically equivalent to Inoue-type manifolds
are again Inoue-type manifolds.
