Alexandrian Sphinx

‘In the fifty years since a biography of the poet last appeared, Constantine Cavafy has emerged as an essential poet of modernity on the world stage. Gregory Jusdanis and Peter Jeffreys have given us an extraordinary biography, eminently readable and as unconventional, scholarly, and impassioned as its subject.’ – Mark Doty, author of My Alexandria
‘A painstakingly researched biography of a quiet Alexandrian who left few traces of his life but whose body of poems the world worships and never tires of translating’ – André Aciman, author of Out of Egypt and Call Me by Your Name
‘Cavafy spoke for young men with big desires and little money, excluded from society and consumed by love and lust. In his maturity he turned all those wasted nights into the work of a world genius.’ – Edmund White, author of A Boy’s Own Story andThe Loves of My Life
‘A deeply researched and engaging biography… Jeffreys and Jusdanis brilliantly recreate Cavafy’s world’ – Michael Nott * Guardian *
‘A richly detailed and clear-sighted account of Cavafy’s life and work … it sends one back to Cavafy’s extraordinary body of poems both enlightened and newly enthused’

* The Spectator *
‘A wonderful miscellanea about Cavafy and the world around him… detailed and fascinating… Jusdanis and Jeffreys are insightful critics’ * Times Literary Supplement *
‘A tender investigation … I closed Alexandrian Sphinx with a different and richer sense of a poet I’ve read for decades … a nuanced and original portrait’ * Literary Review *
‘Melancholy and majesty… [an] extraordinary life story’ - New Statesman

‘This thematically organised study restores to full and vivid life the writer’ - The New World

Peter Jeffreys is an Associate Professor of English at Suffolk University in Boston. He has written, translated, and edited a number of books on Cavafy, including:

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