Alexandrian Sphinx: The Hidden Life of Constantine Cavafy
Language: English
Published by Summit Books UK, 2026
- Softcover
- New

Seller: Biblios, frankfurt am main, hessen, GermanyBiblios
AbeBooks seller since September 10, 2024
Condition: New
£ 21.12
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- Title
- Alexandrian Sphinx: The Hidden Life of Constantine Cavafy
- Author
- Jeffreys, Peter; Jusdanis, Gregory
- Publisher
- Summit Books UK
- Publication year
- 2026
- Condition
- New
- Binding
- Soft cover
- Language
- English
- ISBN 10
- 1398551260
- ISBN 13
- 9781398551268
A gripping and revealing new biography of one of the greatest of modern poets, the queer, Greek-Egyptian Constantine Cavafy, whose admirers have ranged from E.M. Forster, T.S. Eliot and Virginia Woolf to Jackie Onassis, Leonard Cohen and Stephen Fry.
Winner of the International Hellenic Prize
Shortlisted for the Anglo-Hellenic League Runciman Award
'A deeply researched and engaging biography… Jeffreys and Jusdanis brilliantly recreate Cavafy’s world’ - Guardian
‘A nuanced and original portrait’ - Literary Review
‘A richly detailed and clear-sighted account of Cavafy’s life and work’ - Spectator
'Melancholy and majesty. . . [an] extraordinary life story' - New Statesman
In this illuminating book, Peter Jeffreys and Gregory Jusdanis reveal Cavafy as a troubled, brilliant poet who sacrificed love for his art and changed the course of world poetry. Alexandrian Sphinx chronicles the extraordinary story of his family, the vicissitudes of their fortunes, and their eventual poverty when they left Egypt and moved to Liverpool, London and Istanbul. As the poet reached adulthood, his story centred on his beloved Alexandria, the city that nourished his imagination and became for him a metaphor of both his poetry and modern life. Deep archival research uncovers the poet’s relationships with his teenage companions, his friends of middle age, and the individuals whom in later life he enlisted in his steadfast pursuit of fame.
Alexandrian Sphinx tells not only of Cavafy’s life but of his work and his artistic journey, from his early poetic experiments to his startling reinvention in middle age, when he renounced much of what he had written and developed a radical new poetics. Erotic, philosophical, and linguistically suggestive, this widely imitated yet singular style is now recognized and revered as Cavafian.
"Synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author
Gregory Jusdanis, a Distinguished Arts and Sciences Professor at Ohio State University, is the author of The Poetics of Cavafy, Belated Modernity and Aesthetic Culture, The Necessary Nation, Fiction Agonistes, and A Tremendous Thing.
"About the title" may belong to another edition of this title.
Biblios
frankfurt am main, hessen, Germany
AbeBooks seller since September 10, 2024
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