With the release of "Time Regained," the seventh and final volume of Marcel Proust's novel cycle, a translation project that began in 1969 and was interrupted in the middle of the fifth volume, "The Prisoner," by the unexpected death of Pavlos Zannas in 1989, is now complete. Panagiotis Poulos then took up the task, translating the second half of "The Prisoner," "The Fugitive," a translation that was honored with the State Prize for Literary Translation (2015), and finally, "Time Regained."

At the same time, Panagiotis Poulos undertook a revision of the earlier volumes based on the latest editions of Proust's work and the findings of recent research, annotating the entire work with numerous notes—factual, interpretative, and intertextual—that guide the reader through this complex and multifaceted work, which has marked what we call modernity.

Thus, the first Greek edition of "In Search of Lost Time," a work of art that has already achieved a prominent place in world literature through its translations into over forty languages, is now a reality.

The dense references in "Time Regained" to numerous aspects and dimensions of Marcel Proust's work, combined with the upheavals brought about by the First World War, reshape the landscape of the novel and simultaneously invite the reader to revisit the preceding volumes. Additionally, the author indirectly and directly expresses his stance towards art, as well as the limits of this unique literary endeavor, including the limits of his own endurance and the temporal span of his life.

The strengths and weaknesses of artistic truth are weighed with a "transversal" gaze, which not only provides the reader with the opportunity to approach what has transpired so far from a new perspective but also encourages them to turn towards the future, towards critical evaluations and various appropriations of Proust's endeavor over the past century—and indeed invites them to become, to the extent of their abilities, creators of their own work and life choices.

Here emerges an original and particularly timely reflection on the significance of the apprenticeship of Art in the construction of individual and collective life, in the context of an increasingly generalized transition of humanity from traditional structures of existence to the state of modernity.

The notes, the afterword, and the summary accompanying the translation aim to help the reader gain awareness of both the coherence that governs this literary endeavor and the variety of its stakes.