The purpose of my narrative is the written "salvation" of a "significant" memory for me, that is, a meeting that was pushed to the furthest recesses of my memory, at risk of being covered by the veil of forgetfulness, but recently, the power of its significance stubbornly brings it back to the surface and seems to insistently ask me to record it in writing. Thus, I will commit to the nostalgic description of it through recalling the time, the people, and the incidents, assisted by the heightened intensity of memory.

This is the story of a brief in time but long in intensity emotional journey, a short yet fateful excursion to the City. The poet K.P. KAVAFIS decides at a mature age to narrate in detail in a memoir-like prose, recalling from the depths of his memory, the story of a short but fateful journey for himself during his stay at his grandfather's house in the Bosporus neighborhood of Nikhori. He is nineteen years old, the walk lasts less than an hour, and corresponds to the distance from the customs of Karaköy to the opposite beach of Eminönü via the Galata Bridge.

The self-referential monologue observes the thoughts and feelings that arise in the young Konstantinos, both from the irresistible charm exerted by the presence of his peer, the Oriental fellow traveler, awakening his romantic feelings, and, secondarily, from the myths as well as the life of the City, from which his ethnicity is entirely descended and to whose allure he had surrendered at that time.

In this narrative, Thomas Korovinis engages in a very interesting exercise in the style of Kavafis, something he previously attempted with Papadiamantis and Vizyinos.

Biographical Information

Thomas Korovinis, a philologist in Secondary Education, lived for eight years in Istanbul. For years, he has been researching aspects of Greek and Turkish folk culture as well as the relations between them. He collaborates with various cultural-oriented magazines.