I first saw Kythera in 1984. It was love at first sight. I was enchanted by the dry air coming from the yellow fields, the heat in the island's interior, the big waves of Agia Pelagia, and the caves of Paleopoli. But what I kept forever in my soul were the scattered ruins, the arches with the vines, the bougainvilleas, and the jasmines, which thrived and filled the crumbling walls, abandoned for years by those who dreamed of them adorning a quiet and happy life in the house they built with their hands. I didn't search, I didn't see the people. I met their ghosts in the rusty beds, in the churches that sheltered goats, in the shutters that banged furiously from the strong winds of Kythera. I felt their absence in the ruined dry stone walls, in the overgrown fields, in the olive trees that no human hand had tended for many years. And so I bonded with this place that knew how to keep its secrets well hidden. Tzeli Hadjidimitriou. [Excerpt from publisher or edition presentation text]