Although a much-discussed literary figure nowadays, since a revival that started in the mid 1980s, Nikos Kachtitsis enjoyed little recognition during his lifetime. In the 1960s, when he produced his major works, he belonged in the fringe of literary culture. Living outside Greece meant he had no opportunity to mingle in literary circles, and at that time he wrote mostly on non-Greek subjects. The Balcony is strongly linked to a variety of European literary traditions. Its African, particularly colonial theme, launching the primacy of old Europe against the new world of the colonies, is unusual in the Greek prose scene. In Heart of Darkness, mystery is developed amid the alien surroundings of a deeply unsettling landscape, intended to be identified with African otherness. As designated by Prince, the scheme of narrate describes an uninterrupted communicative contract, one that asserts the lucidity of the narrative.