One day, flipping through books, I came across one with small blue and terracotta-colored drawings, palm trees, meanders, balconies that adorned some strange poems. I had just entered high school then, and I felt a secret pleasure reading them, so much so that it became a habit — whenever the house was empty, I would go down to the library and read these poems and no others.
Then I started copying the poems into a notebook. At first, I copied them faithfully, then I began to make variations, and I thought these variations were my own writings. That's how I started writing.
Several years later, Miltos gave me a book with Cavafy's poems; it was the first edition from 1935 with illustrations by Takis Kalmouhos. This is also the only book that was preserved from the library. Since 1974, when the Turkish army entered Famagusta, we never learned anything — neither about the house nor the books. The only certain thing is that the area has not been inhabited; surely, the balcony and the books have overgrown with weeds, and if they are still there, they would be covered with a layer of sand.
Author: Niki Maragkou 1948-2013
Language: GREEK
Pages: 64
Dimensions: 230X150X0
Year of publication: 2019
