The text by Andreas Empirikos about the novel by Dimitris Karagatsis Sergios and Vakhkos was found in the last pages of a notebook from 1960, which includes the first drafts of the poems of Oktana: Of Aigagros, The Door, The Kites, The Immortals, The Korydallos, The Photofraktes, and The Island of the Robinsons. It was written in the summer of 1960, one or two months before Karagatsis's death on September 14 of the same year.

This is the only written document of both the deep friendship that developed between the two, and of Empirikos's admiration for Karagatsis's work, particularly for Sergios and Vakhkos, which he mentions in passing one more time in his travel diary to Russia: when passing by ship from Istanbul, he faintly distinguishes to the west of Hagia Sophia the silhouette of the church of Saints Sergius and Vakhkos.

Empirikos often spoke of this novel and of Karagatsis's work, whom he considered the most important Greek novelist.

[Excerpt from the text of the preface]