"When I was younger, I had planned a trip to North Africa with colleagues and friends. We were supposed to start from Morocco heading east, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, ending in Egypt. Each country had its mythology, from Paul Bowles, Albert Camus to Cavafy, Durrell, and Tsirkas. [...] A meniscus in my left knee caused me to cancel the trip. I was walking with a cane, while the others were traveling. I eagerly awaited my almost fellow travelers to hear from their mouths what I had missed myself. What a disappointment! How pale and meaningless their descriptions were, typical and conventional. Did they seem that way to me because I had been deprived of the experience, or were they truly touristy? Whatever the case, I then realized how incapable many people are of narrating. And I very much fear, I don't know if you agree, that this is because they are incapable of feeling as well."

A story within another story and a book within another book. The swan song of Menis Koumandareas - found in his archive ready for publication - is a short novel that, with writing and the author's role as its axis, develops an inventive narrative full of surprises and twists, with a strong exotic element of the East, subtle irony, and refined humor.