In this book, prose and poetic texts by 16 prose writers and 13 poets are anthologized and examined - particularly from the conventional boundary of 1960 onwards - in which the city of Kavala, along with its wider region, is transformed into a literary city, creating its own mythical tradition and taking on aesthetic and ideological roles.

In their introduction, the anthologists and editors of the book, philologists and modern Greek scholars Evripidis Garantoudis and Mary Mike, after clarifying that the aim of this volume is not to establish a literary canon of Kavala, explore the ways in which the historical and real city of Kavala is transformed into a literary one. The transformation of the real into a literary city combines the real with the fantastic, oscillates between myth and history, animates the structured space with the free choices of fantasies or the sincerity of experiences, ultimately creating a complex literary urbanism.

Therefore, the title "Palimpsest of Kavala" signifies the shift of interest from a poetic of the archive to a poetic of successive inscriptions on the body of the city.