Cavafy ; le fameux poète

BACKGROUND:

Constantine Peter Cavafy was a great Alexandrian poet who traveled to loads of countries & didn’t live a normal stable childhood.

CAVAFY'S LIFE:

Born in Alexandria in 1863 as the youngest child of Constantine Politane .He traveled to loads of countries during his childhood including England & Greece.

And those trips had great effects on his talent of writing poetry. He worked in lots of countries & left a  huge collection of poems in many languages (English , French , Greek & Italian ).He died on the same day of his birthday 29/4/1933 & buried in the Greek cemetery .

CAVAFY THE POET:

He started writing poetry in 186 in English & his first poem was published in a magazine called " The evening " .He wrote a prose essay in English " Give back the Elgin marbles " .Despite writing loads of poems , Cavafy never offered a volume of his poems for sale during his lifetime .

FACTS:

-Cavafy was of an American origin.

-He received a British nationality.

-He suffered from throat cancer & lost his voice

-He has eight brothers & one sister; he was the youngest of all of them.

-He is reported to have spoken his native Greek with a slight British accent until the day he died.

-He didn’t receive full appreciation of Athens until after his death.

THE MUSEUM:

After Cavafy's death, his apartment was turned into a cheap hostel. A museum was later created on the upper floor. His library was saved by Cavafologist

"Prof.Georges Savidis".The museum contains a wide range of bibliographical material, translations of Cavafy's poetry in 20 different languages & most of the 3000 articles written about him & his poetry.

Original photos of Cavafy & his family exist in the museum.