About this book
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."
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Information
Table of contents
- Contents
- Introduction
- A Note on the Translation
- Acknowledgments
- First Poems
- Songs of Mihyar of Damascus
- Migrations and Transformations in the Regions of Night and Day (1965)
- Stage and Mirrors (1968)
- A Time Between Ashes and Roses (1971)
- Singular in a Plural Form (1975)
- The Book of Similarities and Beginnings (1980)
- The Book of Siege (1985)
- Desire Moving Through Maps of Matter (1987)
- Celebrating Vague-Clear Things (1988)
- Another Alphabet (1994)
- Prophesy, O Blind One (2003)
- Beginnings of the Body, Ends of the Sea (2003)
- Printer of the Planets’ Books (2008)
- Notes
- About the Author