Antigone Kefala’s writing is remarkable for its clarity, intensity and austerity. Intimate in its recollections, social in nature, the Journals establishes her as one of Australia’s great diarists.

Antigone Kefala has written four works of fiction, including The First Journey, The Island and Summer Visit, and four poetry collections, The Alien, Thirsty Weather, European Notebook and Absence: New and Selected Poems. Born in Romania of Greek parents, she lived in Greece and New Zealand before coming to Sydney.

(Photograph by Virginia Wallace Crabbe)