The Pages of Day and Night by
Calling poetry a "question that begets another question," Adonis sets into motion this stream of unending inquiry with difficult questions about exile, identity, language, politics, and religion. Repeatedly mentioned as a possible Nobel laureate, Adonis is a leading figure in twentieth-century Arabic poetry. Restless and relentless, Adonis explores the pain and otherness of exile, a state so complete that absence replaces identity and becomes the exile's only presence. Exile can take many forms for the Arabic poet, who must practice his craft as an outsider, separated not only from the nation of his birth but from his own language; in the present as in the past, that exile can mean censorship, banishment, or death. Through these poems, Adonis gives an exquisite voice to the silence of absence.
Adonis: Selected Poems by
Born in Syria in 1930, Adonis is one of the most celebrated poets of the Arabic-speaking world. His poems have earned international acclaim, and his influence on Arabic literature has been likened to that of T. S. Eliot’s on English-language verse. This volume serves as the first comprehensive survey of Adonis’s work, allowing English readers to admire the arc of a remarkable literary career through the labors of the poet’s own handpicked translator, Khaled Mattawa. Experimental in form and prophetic in tone, Adonis’s poetry sings exultantly of both the sweet promise of eros and the lingering problems of the self. Steeped in the anguish of exile and the uncertainty of existence, Adonis demonstrates the poet’s profound affection for Arabic and European lyrical traditions even as his poems work to destabilize those very aesthetic and moral sensibilities. This collection positions the work of Adonis within the pantheon of the great poets of exile, including César Vallejo, Joseph Brodsky, and Paul Celan, providing for English readers the most complete vision yet of the work of the man whom the cultural critic Edward Said called “today’s most daring and provocative Arab poet.”
A Time Between Ashes and Roses by
In this noted anthology, the poet Adonis evokes the wisdom of Whitman's Leaves of Grass (which he liberally excerpts and remolds), the modernism of William Carlos Williams, and the haunting urban imagery of Baudelaire, Cavafy, and Lorca. Three long poems allow him to explore profoundly the human condition, by examining language and love, race and favor, faith and dogma, war and ruin. In the lyrical "This Is My Name " and "Introduction to the History of the Petty Kings, " Adonis ponders Arab defeat and defeatism. In "A Grave for New York, " he focuses on Vietnam-era America. Originally published in 1970 to widespread acclaim, the collection has been reprinted often but has never before appeared in English. Enhanced by Shawkat M. Toorawa's bilingual edition of the Arabic and English on facing pages, an afterword, and assisted by a critical bibliography of Adonis's works, this book is a crucial reference for all students and scholars of modern and Middle Eastern poetry and culture. Noted Syrian intellectual Nasser Rabbat offers a compelling foreword.
Victims of a Map by
A bilingual volume of poetry presenting the work of three award-winning Arabic poets from the past forty years
If Only the Sea Could Sleep by
One of the greatest poets of Arab literature, Adonis's work often centers on the process of poetic creation, but his work has somehow remained highly appealing to Arab readers, and his has had, perhaps, more influence in terms of innovation and modernity than any other contemporary Arab poet. Twice he has been a finalist for the Nobel Prize. For Adonis, poetry is a vision (ru'ya") a "leap outside of established concepts, a change in the order of things and in the way we look at them." Selected from Al-A'mul al Shi'riyya, 1-3 (The Complete Works, 3 volumes) the current book explores the great Syrian poet's oeuvre more than any other previous collection in English.