Antigone Kefala was born to Greek parents and grew up in Romania but moved to Greece after World War II. After three years there, the family emigrated to Wellington, New Zealand in 1951. In 1958 she obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree and in 1960 a Master of Arts degree in French literature from Victoria University, Wellington. In Australia, she taught English as a second language, worked in a library and served as an arts administrator with the Australia Council.
Kefala read from her work on ABC Radio National and given numerous readings around Australia and in the United Kingdom, Kuala Lumpur and Prague. She contributed poetry to several literary journals and collections, and in 1972 she translated from Greek to English a long poem, Men for the Rights of Men Rise: A Poetic Manifesto, by the Greek politician and poet, John Koutsocheras (q.v.). When asked about her relationship to Greek language, Kefala said: 'I originally learned Greek from my grandmother when I was very small, but then I forgot it and I learned it again as an adolescent in Greece. So Greek was a "learned" language - Rumanian was my first language, French was my second language and Greek my third. English was my fourth' (Helen Nickas, Migrant Daughters, p. 225).
Kefala was a member of the Australian Society of Authors and after her retirement began writing fulltime. As well as the works recorded here, she edited Ethnic Arts Directory (1978) and Multiculturalism and the Arts (1986).
Kefala died in December 2022, aged 92, a week after receiving the Patrick White Award.
Australian Poetry Library Author Entry
