Antigone Kefala (1931-2022) was born into a family of musicians in Brăila, Romania, and aspired to be an actor. Following the occupation by the Soviet Union, her family fled Romania, first escaping to Greece and living in refugee camps there. She moved to New Zealand before arriving in Sydney in 1959, where she lived until her death. A poet, novelist, and diarist, she has been described as "one of the most significant of the Australian writers who have come from elsewhere" and a "cultural visionary," mapping the experiences of exile, displacement, and otherness.

Madeleine Watts grew up in Sydney, Australia, and currently lives in New York. She has an MFA in creative writing from Columbia University, and her fiction has been published in The White Review and The Lifted Brow. Her novella Afraid of Waking It was awarded the Griffith Review Novella Prize. Her debut novel The Inland Sea was shortlisted for the 2021 Miles Franklin Literary Award and the UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing. Her non-fiction has appeared in The Believer, Los Angeles Review of Books, and Literary Hub.

Praise for The Island:

"With sensuous and piercing prose, Kefala traces the life of European transplant Melina in post-WWII Sydney...an extraordinary exploration of desire, love, and loss. Readers will cherish this."--Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

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

"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

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

Publisher: Transit Books

Pub date: 2025-06-03

Length: 128 pages