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Dear I’m writing to you many years after you’ve
Mr. Durrell, ceased to exist in this world and even more
since you left Rhodes. Actually, I’m writing
to you not far from the house you lived in.
That is, if I go out on my verandah, I can you imagine? Really! Actually,
clearly see the tops of the eucalyptus trees your Alexandria Quartet was
that sprinkle a light rain of blooms on your republished just a while ago with
roof and courtyard this time every season. If a new translation, a very thick
a north wind blows, the blooms will reach me here, on the street I live. book. All the volumes together.
Normally, if you were still alive and I gathered enough courage, First I heard about you, then
I could pop over to your house in a few minutes and give you this letter I read you and much later
personally or slip it through the mail slot on the wooden door. You I learned that that small house –a
would then see it and on opening it, you would discover that it was really small one– at the edge of
written by one of your neighbours. You don’t know me, but I’ve known the Muslim cemetery next to the
you for years. Everybody knows you! Most people know you today, can Ottoman Murat Reis Mosque in
the town centre, was the house

L e t t e r to

Titsa Pipinou sends a “Letter to Lawrence Durrell”. you lived in. Truth be told, when
And she’s not waiting for a reply. Η Τίτσα Πιπίνου you lived here, I wasn’t even
στέλνει «Γράμμα στον Λόρενς Ντάρελ». born. Too bad! It seems we have
Και δεν περιμένει να πάρει απάντηση. no synchronicity. In any case,
I can write to you as if you were
by Titsa Pipinou still alive, as the writings you
left behind, give us a chance to
L a wr e n c e significant advantage that writers
get to know each other. That’s a
have, if you think about it.
People who’ve never met them,
get to know them.
When I first started going out of
D u rr e l l the neighbourhood, your little
the door of my house, exploring
garden and the neighbouring
cemetery with the turban topped
marble monuments, most of
them askew with age, were some
of the most fascinating things
for us kids. There were those
hieroglyphics, or so we thought,
so beautifully carved in the

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