Adonis

Adonis (born Ali Ahmad Said Esber) is an award-winning Syrian poet and essayist who led the modernist movement in Arabic poetry in the second half of the twentieth century. He has written more than twenty books in his native Arabic, including the pioneering work An Introduction to Arab Poetics. He lives in Paris. Khaled Mattawa is assistant professor of language and literature at the University of Michigan and the author of the poetry volumes Ismaila Eclipse and Zodiac of Echoes.

“Poetry for [Adonis] is not merely a genre or an art form but a way of thinking, something almost like mystical revelation.”—Charles McGrath, New York Times“Selected Poems reveals the transformation of Adonis’s style over the past five decades to a degree that has not been possible in the previous single collections of the poet’s work in English translation. . . . Without doubt, Adonis . . . has changed the game of Arab poetry. With the publication of Khaled Mattawa’s lucid translations in Selected Poems, Adonis may change the American poetry game, as well.”—Stephan Delbos, Prague Post“[A] gift to English readers.”—Hisham Matar, Irish Times, Books of the Year“[F]or the first time, English readers can get a just sense of Adonis’s extraordinary poetic genius.”—Eric Ormsby, Literary Review“Selected Poems is an impressive achievement for both poet and translator, giving the Anglophone world the first comprehensive selection of Adonis’s poetry from the early days of his 60 years writing poetry to 2008.”—Banipal; Magazine of Modern Arab Literature (40)Khaled Mattawa was the winner of the 2010 Academy Fellowship, given by the Academy of American PoetsSelected as a finalist for the 2011 Griffin Poetry Prize sponsored by the Griffin Trust for Excellence in PoetryAdonis was the winner of the 2011 Goethe Prize, given by the city of FrankfurtKhaled Mattawa was the winner of the 2011 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation for Adonis: Selected Poems, given by PEN American CenterWinner of the 2011 Saif Ghobash-Banipal Prize for Literary Translation, as awarded by the Banipal Trust for Arab Literature“Adonis, born Ali Ahmad Said Esber in the Alaouite village of Qassabin in western Syria in 1930, is recognized as one of the most important poets and theorists of literature in the Arab world, and one of the most important contemporary poets and poetic thinkers in any language or context. His influence on Arabic poetry can be compared with that of Pound or Eliot on poetry in English, combined, however, with a radical and secular critique of his society. His poetry is widely known and available in Europe, in many languages and multiple translations. Khaled Mattawa, one of the best and most audacious younger American poets, also a brilliant, knowledgeable translator, has worked for two decades, latterly with the collaboration of Adonis, on a collection that will represent his scope, his thought, his linguistic daring and innovation to Anglophone readers. This magisterial anthology, covering more than fifty years of work, marked with the poet’s ‘epic scope and lyrical precision,’ will indelibly mark his presence alongside world poets like Milosz, Akhmatova, Darwish, Neruda, Amichai and Bonnefoy.”—Marilyn Hacker“There is no doubt this selection will prove to be the standard by which all translations, readings, and studies of Adonis’s poetry in English will be judged. The sweeping canopy of his life’s achievement is astonishing in Khaled Mattawa’s vision. Mattawa’s lyrical rendition of Adonis’s intensely musical Arabic is unparalleled by any available translation, old or recent, of Adonis’s work in English.”—Fady Joudah, translator of If I Were Another: Poems by Mahmoud Darwish