An exciting and revealing biography of one of the greatest modern poets, the queer, Greek-Egyptian Constantine Cavafy, whose admirers include E.M. Forster and T.S. Eliot as well as Virginia Woolf, Jackie Onassis, Leonard Cohen, and Stephen Fry.

In this illuminating book, Peter Jeffreys and Gregory Jusdanis reveal Cavafy as a troubled, exceptional poet who sacrificed his love for his art and changed the course of world poetry.

The Alexandrian Sphinx records the remarkable story of his family, their fortunes and misfortunes, and their eventual poverty when they left Egypt and relocated to Liverpool, London, and Constantinople. As the poet reached adulthood, his story centered on his beloved Alexandria, the city that nurtured his imagination and became for him a metaphor for both his poetry and modern life.

Deep archival research uncovers the poet’s relationships with his adolescent companions, his middle-aged friends, and the individuals he later employed in his steady pursuit of fame. The Alexandrian Sphinx narrates not only Cavafy’s life but also his work and artistic journey, from his early poetic experiments to his impressive midlife renaissance, when he rejected most of what he had written and developed a radically new poetic style.

Erotic, philosophical, and linguistically exemplary, this widely imitated yet unique style is now recognized and honored as Cavafian.