This conversation with Adonis, the greatest living poet of the Arab world, focuses on questions regarding the intersection of visual art and poetry in theory and practice. This gathering is timed to coincide with the publication of a new English-language translation of a remarkable series of dialogues between Adonis and Syrian artist Fateh al-Moudarres (trans. Rula Baalbaki) hosted by Mouna Atassi in Damascus in 1998. There will be a screening of rare archival video footage from that dialogue, followed by commentary from Mouna Atassi and the Research Scholar and Artist Ala Younis, and an extended discussion with Adonis about the keywords of sense and intuition in literature, art, and his own life and work.
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Meet the Author
Adonis
Adonis (or Adunis, b. Ali Ahmad Said Esber, Al-Qassabin, 1930)
is one of the most influential figures in modern Arabic poetry.
Rebelling against the tropes of traditional Arabic poetry to
experiment with free verse, variable meter and prose poetry
(drawing on Neo-Sufism, mysticism and dream), he is responsible for
a poetic revolution the scale of which has been compared to that
of what T.S. Eliot did for the English poetic canon. He has produced
some 20 volumes of poetry in addition to numerous books of
criticism, translation and a multi-volume anthology of Arabic poetry
covering 2000 years of verse (Diwan ash-shi’r al-‘arabi).
As a child, Adonis attended the local Kuttab for instruction in
Islamic and literary studies. After an encounter with the Syrian
President Shukri Al-Quwatli during a visit to his village in 1944,
Adonis was granted a place at the French Lycée in Tartus, and
by age seventeen was submitting poetry under the nom de plume
of Adonis. He studied law and philosophy at the University of
Damascus in 1951, before serving in the Syrian military. During this
time, he was imprisoned briefly for alleged affiliations with the
Syrian Social Nationalist Party, and upon his release, moved to
Beirut in 1956. It was here, all within a few short years, that he met
his wife, the literary critic Khalida Saleh-Said, pursued his PhD in
Arabic literature, produced his first collection of poems and cofounded
the progressive Arab literary journal Majjallat Shi’ir with
Syrian-Lebanese poet Yusuf Al-Khal.
Adonis has collaborated with several artists, including Mona Saudi,
Kamal Boullata and Ziad Dalloul as well as experimenting with
visual art by writing and drawing simultaneously, blending mixed
media with calligraphy and ink. He has been based in Paris
since 1985.
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