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The Barbarians Arrive Today C.P. Cavafy

The Barbarians Arrive Today By C.P. Cavafy

The Barbarians Arrive Today by C.P. Cavafy


$32.99
Condition - Very Good
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Summary

A Complete Poems of one of the most distinguished Greek-language poets of the 20th century, translated by Greek-Canadian poet and critic Evan Jones.

The Barbarians Arrive Today Summary

The Barbarians Arrive Today: Poems & Prose by C.P. Cavafy

A Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year 2020. A Review 31 Book of the Year 2020. With The Barbarians Arrive Today, Evan Jones has produced the classic English Cavafy for our age. Expertly translated from Modern Greek, this edition presents Cavafy's finest poems, short creative prose and autobiographical writings, offering unique insights into his life's work. Born in Alexandria, Egypt, Constantine Petrou Cavafy (1863-1933) was a minor civil servant who self-published and distributed his poems among friends; he is now regarded as one of the most significant poets of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, an influence on writers across generations and languages. The broad, rich world of the Mediterranean and its complex history are his domain, its days and nights of desire and melancholy, ambition and failure - with art always at the centre of life.

The Barbarians Arrive Today Reviews

'Do we need another Cavafy, the most translated of modern Greek poets? Surprisingly, Evan Jones shows us that the answer is a resounding 'yes.' Cavafy famously left behind a body of 154 'canonical poems,' a number corresponding conveniently with the number of Shakespeare's sonnets. But he also left us with 37 'repudiated' poems, some of which were composed in the synthetic literary 'katherevousa' register of Greek, 75 'hidden' poems, and 30 'unfinished' or 'imperfect' poems. Cavafy also wrote prose about some of the same subject matter, and that explored his ideas about poetry. Jones does not attempt to give us a complete overview of Cavafy's work, but by putting poems in thematic categories, and allowing 'hidden' poems to brush up against 'canonical' ones (one could note that the manuscript of 'The Horses of Achilles' and of the much less well known 'Priam's Night March' are written on two sides of the same piece of paper) we see them in a new, revealing light. Jones is sensitive not only to the sense, but the sound of the Greek, rhyming where the original does, and his afterword, while wearing its considerable scholarship lightly, reorients Cavafy's oeuvre for the reader. It is a great pleasure - one of the most important Cavafyian words - to have these poems and prose writings in one volume.' - A.E. Stallings; 'Evan Jones merits the rewards of modesty; not improving what needs no improvement, nor trumping the ace with jokers of his own, lean and keen he ghosts cleverly along, oddly angular Poet of the City on his arm.' - Frederic Raphael

About C.P. Cavafy

C.P. Cavafy was born in Alexandria, Egypt, where his Constantinopolitan Greek parents had settled in the mid-1850s. Cavafy spent his adolescence in England and Istanbul, but returned to Alexandria in 1885 where he worked as a journalist initially, and, from 1892 until his retirement in 1922, as a clerk in the Irrigation Office. Cavafy was not well-known in his lifetime, but found international recognition posthumously, and his admirers include Marguerite Yourcenar, Czeslaw Milosz, Leonard Cohen, Orhan Pamuk and Seamus Heaney.; Evan Jones lives in Manchester. His first collection, Nothing Fell Today But Rain (Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2003), was a finalist for the Governor-General's Literary Award for Poetry. He co-edited Modern Canadian Poets (Carcanet, 2010). His British debut, Paralogues, was published by Carcanet in 2012, and his latest collection, Later Emperors, in 2020.

Additional information

GOR011731559
9781784109943
1784109940
The Barbarians Arrive Today: Poems & Prose by C.P. Cavafy
Used - Very Good
Paperback
Carcanet Press Ltd
20200924
352
N/A
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
This is a used book - there is no escaping the fact it has been read by someone else and it will show signs of wear and previous use. Overall we expect it to be in very good condition, but if you are not entirely satisfied please get in touch with us

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