JUSDANIS, GREGORY & JEFFREYS, PETER — Constantine Cavafy: A New Biography

New York, Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 2025, 1st US Edition. (ISBN: 9780374610425) Hardcover. Book, "The first biography in nearly fifty years of the greatest Greek poet of the twentieth century" This long-awaited study captures the complexities of Constantine Cavafy's life and work, showing him to have been a troubled, brilliant poet who sacrificed love for his art. In rich detail, Gregory Jusdanis and Peter Jeffreys chronicle the young poet's life with his family, the vicissitudes of their fortunes, and their eventual poverty after they left Egypt and moved successively to Liverpool, London, and Istanbul. The biography then centers on Constantine's adulthood in his beloved Alexandria, the city that nourished his imagination and became for him a metaphor for 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.534p.+ Plates. copious notes [pages 429-486] bibliography, index. inscribed by author. As New/New. Inscribed by Author(s).