Starting the publication of selected texts, published from 1976 to the present day, Giannis Kiourtsakis recalls in this book a spiritual journey of half a century and wonders: How did a city boy, coming out of the university that stood for Europe, feel the need to study at the humble school of Karagiozis! And how many new things he learned there! How in the wrecked official Greece, which brought the dictatorship of 1967, there was always a vibrant popular culture. How the collective co-creation of shadow theater by the old Karagiozis players and their audience gave birth to a spontaneous cultural democracy. How all popular theaters have their roots in the symbolic language of the carnival "world upside down". How a long-standing and multinational tradition transformed into genuine modern Greek creation. The most paradoxical thing: how the primitive, ambiguous, polyphonic character of Karagiozis led him to the art of the novel. Many more things that the reader will discover here.

"The paths of creation: this thread connects a series of my texts that begins with this book. Karagiozis, oral tradition, popular culture, personal art, novel, European and modern Greek culture, today's crisis of civilization... Common goal, always utopian but urgent: the transition from a society of impersonal production and consumption to a society of creation, capable of laying the foundation for tomorrow's universal culture". (G.K.)