Sydney Journals - by Antigone Kefala (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

A thirty-year diary that became a groundbreaking literary project.

Antigone Kefala has long been considered one of Australia's best kept secrets. Born in Romania in 1931, she and her family were forced to flee following the occupation by the Soviet Union, escaping first to refugee camps in Greece before moving to New Zealand and then finally Australia in 1959, where she lived until her death.

As she grew into her career as a writer, she situated herself within Sydney's artistic and intellectual milieu, publishing poetry and fiction. She also kept a diary for over thirty years, portraying a world sustained by conversation and friendship, and by reflection, on books and paintings, plays and films, and literary fortune.

For Kefala, Sydney Journals was a literary project, culled from decades of recordkeeping and shaped by austere and frank observations that beam with poignancy and humor. What is left is a rare document of the domestic and public life of the period, of an aging writer and her companions, and the dramatic beauty of the city and its landscapes.

Intimate in its recollections, social in nature, the Journals establishes Antigone Kefala as one of literature's great diarists.

Review Quotes

Praise for Sydney Journals:

"Marvelous... The product of a mind that is as self-sufficient as it is self-assured."--Jacob Brogan, The Washington Post

Praise for Antigone Kefala:

"In poetry as in prose, Antigone Kefala has made the fragment her form. It's a form that embodies both salvage and destruction, and it's wonderfully deployed in Late Journals to snatch moments from time while testifying to discontinuity and loss. I couldn't stop reading this book. It bears moving witness to a distinctive, cosmopolitan vision and an unwavering faith in the power and integrity of art."--Michelle de Kretser, author of Theory and Practice

"Sydney Journals (2008) and Late Journals (2022) showcase Kefala's distinctive, cosmopolitan vision. They are, among other things, wonderful Sydney documents, capturing the city's changing moods and forms through charged, astute, visually rich observation...While the loss of community attendant on migration is felt in Kefala's Late Journals, this work highlights a different, sustaining kinship: the artists and intellectuals Kefala engages with, their presence and their work serving to enrich her days. There is wonderful generosity in Kefala's acknowledgment of the creative work that matters to her, and a sense of celebration in her intransigent faith in the value and power of art."--Judges' citation, Patrick White Literary Award

"The best Australian writer you've never heard of."--The Berliner

"Late Journals... affirms Kefala's role as a poet and intellectual, with images and ideas cascading on each other in poetic abundance."--Mel Dixon

About the Author

Antigone Kefala (1931-2022) wrote three works of fiction, The First Journey, The Island and Alexia, and five poetry collections, The Alien, Thirsty Weather, European Notebook, Absence: New and Selected Poems, and Fragments, which won the 2017 Judith Wright Calanthe Award and was shortlisted for the Prime Minister's Award for Poetry. Her collections of journals are Summer Visit, Sydney Journals and Late Journals, her final work. She was the recipient of the 2022 Patrick White Literary Award.