Antigone Kefala

Who is Antigone Kefala?

Antigone Kefala is a contemporary Australian poet and prose-writer of Greek-Romanian heritage. She has also been a teacher, and a member of the Literature Board of the Australia Council.

Born in Brăila, Romania in 1935, Antigone Kefala and family moved to Greece and then New Zealand after World War II. Having studied French Literature at Victoria University, she relocated to Australia in 1960. There she has taught English as a second language and worked as a university and arts administrator. Her poetry and prose is written in both Greek and English, with Absence: New and Selected Poems reissued in a second edition in 1998. Her work is characterised by an austere allusiveness unusual in Australian poetry. Aside from Greek and English it has been translated into Czech and French.