The book includes 33 studies by older and newer scholars of modern Greek literature, university academics, and critics, which form an alternative, multifaceted, and historically oriented view of modern Greek literature of the 20th and early 21st centuries.

It focuses on literary creation and its relationships with European literature, historiography, and criticism as shapers of literary perceptions. At the same time, it examines the work that served as the initial trigger: the eight-volume History of Modern Greek Literature by Alexandros Argyris, in memory of whom a conference was dedicated in May 2011 at the University of Crete, from which this volume emerged.

The recent literary past, the 20th century, is more difficult to narrate than the distant past, precisely because it is more alive, more diverse; however, it offers a privileged field to experiment with new reflections. The book aims to provoke stimuli, to highlight themes, and not to close chapters.

How is a history of literature written today? 'History' is not just the narration of what happened, nor a simple chronological classification; it must be a search for the sequence (where does it exist? where does it not?), a reflection on its functioning (what does presence signify, what does absence signify?), which realizes that it cannot be final; it will always be partial, but perhaps precisely for this reason it achieves fruitful insights, illuminating certain aspects that are more hidden, more revealing of the influences literature exerts on readers.

[Excerpt from the text on the back cover of the edition]