Selected Prose Works

This is the first appearance in English of important prose works by poet C. P. Cavafy. Constantine Cavafy (1863-1933) is arguably the most important modern poet of Greece and Greek culture. Long a resident of Egypt and then Constantinople, Cavafy in his poems and prose works tended to focus on Greco-Roman antiquity, on Greece's national identity, and on personal and mythological images and themes including his ethnicity and sexual identity. He wrote some 150 poems, plus a few in collaboration with his brother John. His poetical works have been much translated and discussed, but until now, very little consideration has been given to his prose works, in part because many remained untranslated from the original Greek. This book collects Cavafy's more interesting prose pieces and translates those that originally appeared in Greek. Of the forty pieces included, only thirteen have previously appeared in print, and of those thirteen only a few were in English. The pieces include essays, 'prose poems', short stories, self-assessments, and considerations of other poets including John Keats. This significant new collection offers a different perspective on the well-known Cavafy.