Songs of Mihyar the Damascene

Description

The landmark poetry collection that transformed 20th-century Arabic poetry, in a brilliant new translation by Kareem James Abu-Zeid and Ivan Eubanks Written in the early 1960s by Adonis, 'the most eloquent spokesman and explorer of Arabic modernity' (Edward Said), Songs of Mihyar the Damascene is widely considered to be the apex of the modernist poetry movement in the Arab world, and a radical departure from the rigid formal structures that had dominated Arabic poetry until the 1950s. Drawing not only on Western influences, such as T.S. Eliot and Nietzsche, but on the deep tradition and history of Arabic poetry, Adonis accomplished a masterful and unprecedented transformation of the forms and themes of Arabic poetry, initiating a profound revaluation of cultural and poetic traditions. Songs of Mihyar is a masterpiece of world literature that rewrote - through Mediterranean myths and renegade Sufi mystics - what it meant to be an Arab in the modern world.

Adonis was born Ali Ahmed Said Esber in the Syrian village Al-Qassabin in 1930. A perennial candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature, Adonis initiated a revolution in the structures and themes of Arabic poetry. In 1956, fleeing political persecution, he moved to Beirut, and in 1985, the ongoing Lebanese civil war forced him to relocate to Paris, where he has resided ever since. Adonis has translated several poets into Arabic, such as Ovid and Saint-John Perse, and has received numerous honors, including the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, the Goethe Prize, and the Pen/Nabokov Award. Kareem James Abu-Zeid is completing his Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley. Ivan Eubanks is the editor of the Pushkin Review and Director of UCCI TV. He has a PhD in Slavic Languages from Princeton University.