The Arab world's greatest living poet.--The New York Times
Adonis is one of the most important major literary figures of our
century. His vision is extraordinary, his poetry sublime . . . a master
of our times.--V. S. Naipaul
At first glance, Sufism and Surrealism appear to be as far removed from
one another as is possible. Adonis, however, draws convincing parallels
between the two, contesting that God, in the traditional sense, does not
exist in Surrealism or in Sufism, and that both are engaged in parallel
quests for the nature of the Absolute, through holy madness and the
deregulation of the senses.
This is a remarkable investigation into the common threads of thought
that run through seemingly polarised philosophies from East and West,
written by a man Edward Said referred to as the most eloquent spokesman
and explorer of Arab modernity.
Adonis is one of the most celebrated poets and essayists of the Arab
world. Born in Syria in 1930, he fled political persecution and settled
in Lebanon in the 1950s, where he led the modernist movement in Arabic
poetry. He has written more than thirty books in Arabic, including the
pioneering work An Introduction to Arab Poetics, and was awarded the
Goethe Prize in 2011 for his contribution to international literature.
His other awards include the Spiros Vergos Prize for Freedom of
Expression, the Bjørnson Prize, the International Nâzim Hikmet Poetry
Award, and the Syria-Lebanon Best Poet Award.
