Una vita degna di un romanzo, anzi cinque.

This preface introduces Maria Iordanidou’s Vacations in the Caucasus, contextualizing it within her late-blooming literary career and her unique position in 20th-century Greek literature. The author argues that Iordanidou’s work transcends mere memoirism; it is a sophisticated blending of personal history and historical upheaval. By examining her formative years in Constantinople and the Black Sea, the preface highlights how Iordanidou’s multilingualism and "cosmopolitanism of the margins" shaped a narrative voice characterized by irony, resilience, and a lack of self-pity. The analysis focuses on the thematic interplay between the idyllic memories of the Caucasus and the looming shadows of the Russian Revolution and the First World War. Ultimately, the preface positions this work not just as a sequel to her masterpiece Loxandra, but as a crucial testimony to the vanishing world of the Hellenic diaspora, delivered through a stylistic simplicity that masks deep intellectual complexity.