Download or read book Elegies for the Dead in Cyrenaica written by Hamish Henderson and published by Polygon. This book was released on 2008 with total page 72 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Elegies for the Dead in Cyrenaica was written between 1942 and 1947, when Hamish Henderson was serving in the North African desert during the Second World War. Each elegy pays tribute to the men who fought with and against him, their lives portrayed with great sympathy and compassion, while the desert itself becomes the unforgiving enemy. Published in 1948, the poems were highly praised by his contemporaries including Cecil Day-Lewis, T. S Eliot and Hugh MacDairmid and. The collection was awarded the Somerset Maugham Prize in 1949.