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Archive of Desire

A poem in four parts for C. P. Cavafy

Author Robin Coste Lewis
Hardcover
$27.00 US
Knopf
On sale Oct 07, 2025 | 96 Pages | 9781524732608
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The National Book Award, PEN/Voelcker, and NAACP Image Award winner returns with another inventive and boundary-breaking book: a sensual journey ignited in the archives of iconic queer Alexandrian poet C. P. Cavafy.

In her first book, Robin Coste Lewis's poems exploded the imagery of the Black female figure from antiquity through the present day; her second was an expansive hybrid photographic-poetic study of human migration and the human family; now she delivers a slim “performance in four parts,” which originated as an actual sound performance with the composer Vijay Iyer, cellist Jeffrey Zeigler, and visual artist Julie Mehretu. With Lewis as the speaking voice, the quartet reflected on desire, diaspora, and the liminal spaces where art asserts itself, ignited by their encounters with Cavafy's archive in the heart of Athens. Lewis weaves in and out of Cavafy's rooms, notebooks, and the  suppressed erotic need underpinning his work, conversing directly with him: “often you/ reminded us/ the only true // barbarians/ are the ones raging in silence / inside // of our own / minds.” But she brings equal parts of herself to this study of artistry and sensuality, as in the short, tender section entitled “Cavafy in Compton: Self-Portrait at 16.” 

As in all Lewis's works, she reaches across centuries here to express what is timeless and not bound by our current moment or our single selves: the discipline and glory of art, the give and take of love, the kiss that lives in the moment, the unfolding journey of being human whose contours only become clear with the passage of time, the igniting of memory, and the words we find to describe the journey.
© Abigail Rudner
ROBIN COSTE LEWIS won the National Book Award for Voyage of the Sable Venus, her first collection of poetry. The book was also a finalist for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Award, and it was named one of the best books of the year by The New Yorker and The New York Times. Literary Hub named it one of the best books of the last twenty years. She is also the coauthor, with Kevin Young, of Robert Rauschenberg: Thirty-Four Illustrations for Dante’s Inferno. The former poet laureate of Los Angeles, Lewis holds a PhD in Poetry and Visual Studies from the University of Southern California, an MFA in poetry from New York University, an MTS in Sanskrit and comparative religious literature from the Divinity School at Harvard University, and a BA from Hampshire College in post-colonial literature and creative writing. Her work has appeared in various journals and anthologies, including The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Paris Review, Transition, and The Massachusetts Review. Lewis has taught at Hampshire College, Hunter College, Wheaton College, and the NYU Low-Residency MFA in Paris. She is currently writer in residence at the University of Southern California.


ROBIN COSTE LEWIS is available for select speaking engagements. To inquire about a possible appearance, please contact Penguin Random House Speakers Bureau at speakers@penguinrandomhouse.com or visit prhspeakers.com. View titles by Robin Coste Lewis

About

The National Book Award, PEN/Voelcker, and NAACP Image Award winner returns with another inventive and boundary-breaking book: a sensual journey ignited in the archives of iconic queer Alexandrian poet C. P. Cavafy.

In her first book, Robin Coste Lewis's poems exploded the imagery of the Black female figure from antiquity through the present day; her second was an expansive hybrid photographic-poetic study of human migration and the human family; now she delivers a slim “performance in four parts,” which originated as an actual sound performance with the composer Vijay Iyer, cellist Jeffrey Zeigler, and visual artist Julie Mehretu. With Lewis as the speaking voice, the quartet reflected on desire, diaspora, and the liminal spaces where art asserts itself, ignited by their encounters with Cavafy's archive in the heart of Athens. Lewis weaves in and out of Cavafy's rooms, notebooks, and the  suppressed erotic need underpinning his work, conversing directly with him: “often you/ reminded us/ the only true // barbarians/ are the ones raging in silence / inside // of our own / minds.” But she brings equal parts of herself to this study of artistry and sensuality, as in the short, tender section entitled “Cavafy in Compton: Self-Portrait at 16.” 

As in all Lewis's works, she reaches across centuries here to express what is timeless and not bound by our current moment or our single selves: the discipline and glory of art, the give and take of love, the kiss that lives in the moment, the unfolding journey of being human whose contours only become clear with the passage of time, the igniting of memory, and the words we find to describe the journey.

Author

© Abigail Rudner
ROBIN COSTE LEWIS won the National Book Award for Voyage of the Sable Venus, her first collection of poetry. The book was also a finalist for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Award, and it was named one of the best books of the year by The New Yorker and The New York Times. Literary Hub named it one of the best books of the last twenty years. She is also the coauthor, with Kevin Young, of Robert Rauschenberg: Thirty-Four Illustrations for Dante’s Inferno. The former poet laureate of Los Angeles, Lewis holds a PhD in Poetry and Visual Studies from the University of Southern California, an MFA in poetry from New York University, an MTS in Sanskrit and comparative religious literature from the Divinity School at Harvard University, and a BA from Hampshire College in post-colonial literature and creative writing. Her work has appeared in various journals and anthologies, including The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Paris Review, Transition, and The Massachusetts Review. Lewis has taught at Hampshire College, Hunter College, Wheaton College, and the NYU Low-Residency MFA in Paris. She is currently writer in residence at the University of Southern California.


ROBIN COSTE LEWIS is available for select speaking engagements. To inquire about a possible appearance, please contact Penguin Random House Speakers Bureau at speakers@penguinrandomhouse.com or visit prhspeakers.com. View titles by Robin Coste Lewis

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