“... When I graduated from the brothels of Piraeus and went out for the first time with a girl, as a couple, I wanted to take her somewhere. My first trip abroad from Piraeus was to Au Revoir. It was as if I found myself at the center of the world; I remember we were drinking vermouth then. The atmosphere inside was just right for a teenager to transition to manhood with mutual love for a woman (who was married at that time)...

The junta came, I left for abroad, and when I finally returned, I went to see how that bar is doing. Everything was the same, the only thing that had changed was that I was no longer a teenager. It seems metaphysical but it isn’t... So we were sitting at the bar and telling various stories. The atmosphere was always friendly. From the stories they told, I learned things; it was the oral tradition that carried specific knowledge, which is very important.

I got the idea to write a kind of symposium – which I place in the loft and not at the bar for comfort reasons, because at the bar anyone can come, while when you have company in the loft you don’t go – various love stories. Some I have heard, others I have invented, and some I have distorted. The basis is that they are confessions among men. Here were born the 'Pious Women of Passion'. The culmination of the book is that we will never understand women...”.

Interview of Periklis Korovesis by Nikos Servetas, Documento, 26/11/2017