Coming home, coming out: Achmat Dangor's journeys through myth and Constantin Cavafy
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Date
2011
Authors
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Publisher
Taylor & Francis Group
Abstract
Despite his international status, the impact of Constantin Cavafy�s poetry on
South African letters has gone largely unnoticed. This article draws attention
to the range of Cavafy's, influence on the local poets, writers, critics and cultural
activists, particularly during the 1970s and 1980s, but directs most of its attention
to two early short stories by Achmat Dangor, �The Homecoming� and �Waiting
for Leila�, and his most recent novel Bitter Fruit. In all of these works Dangor
refers directly and indirectly to Cavafy�s poetry, his sexuality, his evocations of
place and his use of Greek mythology, particularly in one of his most famous
poems �Ithaka�. The article also addresses Dangor�s ambivalence towards Cavafy,
particularly the disjuncture between Cavafy�s ironic, apolitical modernism,
modernism�s appeal to Dangor, his desire to produce accessible protest literature
and his need to justify recourse to the classics in Africa.
Description
Keywords
Cavafy, Dangor, Poetry, Short stories, Homosexuality, Mythology, Cape Town, Modernism, Influence, Alexandria
Citation
Field, R. (2011). Coming home, coming out: Achmat Dangor's journeys through myth and Constantin Cavafy. English Studies in Africa, 54(2): 103-117