Tuesday, June 04, 2013

News at Eleven: Daniel Mendelsohn, the latest of his many translators,

has had access to [C.P.] Cavafy's 30 unfinished poems and four fragmentary pieces. This beautifully produced book is therefore as complete an edition as one can expect. Mendelsohn's scholarship is formidable. He produces mini-biographies of the emperors, mystics and martyrs who populate the ancient civilisation Cavafy captures with such beguiling immediacy. No previous editor or translator has been so thorough. It could be said, with a certain accuracy, that Mendelsohn is a larger presence here than his unassuming subject.

from The Guardian: C.P. Cavafy: The Complete Poems--review

~~~~~~~~~~~

No comments :