Constantine Cavafy

A long-awaited and much-anticipated biography of one of the great modern poets.

This life study shows Constantine Cavafy as a flawed genius who sacrificed love to change the course of world poetry. Seeking to capture the complexities of Cavafy’s life and art, Gregory Jusdanis and Peter Jeffreys approach the biography thematically.

The book begins in an Alexandria hospital in 1933 where the poet lies dying, surrounded by friends. In rich detail, it chronicles his family, the viscidities of their fortunes, and their eventual poverty as they leave Egypt and move to Liverpool, London, and Istanbul. As the poet reaches adulthood, the biography centers on his beloved Alexandria, the city that nourished his imagination and became for him a metaphor of both his poetry and modern life. The authors then examine the poet’s relationships with his teenage companions, his friends of middle age, and those individuals in later life whom he enlisted in his steadfast pursuit of fame.

Constantine Cavafy: A New Biography also looks closely at Cavafy’s poetry and 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 new poetics, which the world now recognizes as Cavafian. The study ends with the poet’s memorial service, when his literary heir tries to untangle Cavafy’s contradictions and safeguard the legacy of the man who risked everything for a global reputation.