A Time Between Ashes and Roses

Paper $19.95   |    0-8156-0828-4   |   2004

Adonis Favored to Win the Nobel Prize in Literature
Syrian poet, Adonis (Ali Ahmad-Said), is a strong favorite for the 2005 Nobel Prize for literature. The Swedish Academy is likely to announce the prize on October 13. The author of numerous books of poetry and criticism, Adonis is considered to be among the most important modern Arab poets. The current political climate brings heightened interest to literature of the Middle East and long-overdue attention to a poet whose provocative content and arresting style have played a leading role in revolutionizing Arabic literature. Shawkat M. Toorawa provides the first complete translation—in a bilingual edition of the Arabic and English on facing pages—of his signature work, A Time Between Ashes and Roses, encouraging a greater audience to this powerful voice. Read more about the Nobel Prize in Literature

AN INTERVIEW WITH SHAWKAT TOORAWA DISCUSSING THE POETRY OF ADONIS

Syracuse University Press:
The selection of the Nobel Prize for literature is often seen in a political context. Given Adonis has been a finalist for the award several times and not chosen, what affect does the outcome of this award, Adonis winning or not winning, have on Arab literature and the general perception of the Arab world?

Toorawa:
Needless to say, if Adonis does win, then the effect is to bring attention to the literary, creative and intellectual output of the Arab world. That can only be a good thing when attention on the Arab world is so often a function of political interest and interests. If he doesn't win, I doubt this will affect perceptions of Arabic literature. It would be easy to say, "Oh, he's an Arab" so they didn't give it to him, but Naguib Mahfouz has been a winner in the past, this year's Peace Prize went to an Arab and, as the Frankfurt Book Fair showed last year by honoring the Arab world as "guest of honour," Arabic literature is acknowledged on the world stage.

Syracuse University Press:
Poetry in the United States is not widely read and arguably, has little influence in our culture. Do you see the poetry of Adonis as more relevant or occupying a more central role to the culture of Middle East today?

Toorawa:
Poetry has always been important in Arab culture. Evidence of this is the fact that daily newspapers publish the work of poets. When the US began its military offensive in Iraq, a poem by Adonis appeared on the front page of an Arabic newspaper. There is evidently political poetry in the US, but I suspect that in the political realm it has given way to the protest song. As far as non-political culture is concerned, it would seem to be the case that schooled Arabs study and memorize more poetry than their US counterparts, but that is an anecdotal observation.

Syracuse University Press:
In "A Grave for New York" Adonis addresses Walt Whitman. In what way do American poets influence his poetry?

Toorawa:
In the way that all great poets are influenced by all other great poets! Adonis likes Whitman in particular for any number of reasons. I might single out Whitman's engagement with New York, with the plight of African-Americans, and, for want of a better term, his freedom with language and form. Formally, especially in his long poems, Adonis also is influenced by William Carlos Willliams and Hart Crane. He is also a fan of Edgar Allan Poe.

Syracuse University Press:
His poetry involves innovative uses of language, experimenting with syntax, rhythm and metaphors. How does this complicate the role of the translator? What, if anything, gets "lost in translation"?

Toorawa:
It complicates things immeasurably. One is constantly making decisions about what to sacrifice, to include, to replicate. But I don't want to give the impression that translating an apparently simpler poet is necessarily easier. It comes down to wanting to translate a sensibility. As for what gets lost in translation, Péguy says that poetry is what gets left behind in translations.

Syracuse University Press:
What does the poetry of Adonis, from his specific vantage point, offer students of poetry today?

Toorawa:
I taught a seminar titled "New York, Paris, Baghdad: Poetry of the City" last semester at Cornell. I assigned Adonis alongside Baudelaire, Whitman, Cavafy, Lorca, al-Bayati, Adnan and others. I think it's fair to say, based on the students' reactions, that Adonis offered them what other great poets offer: a way, sometimes new, sometimes just newly formulated, of thinking about self, world, language, and commitment.

The first English translation of a signature work by one of the greatest living Arab poets.

Description
In this noted anthology, the poet Adonis evokes the wisdom of Whitman's Leaves of Grass (which he liberally excerpts and remolds), the modernism of William Carlos Williams, and the haunting urban imagery of Baudelaire, Cavafy, and Lorca. Three long poems allow him to explore profoundly the human condition, by examining language and love, race and favor, faith and dogma, war and ruin. In the lyrical "This Is My Name " and "Introduction to the History of the Petty Kings, " Adonis ponders Arab defeat and defeatism. In "A Grave for New York, " he focuses on Vietnam-era America. Originally published in 1970 to widespread acclaim, the collection has been reprinted often but has never before appeared in English. Enhanced by Shawkat M. Toorawa's bilingual edition of the Arabic and English on facing pages, an afterword, and assisted by a critical bibliography of Adonis's works, this book is a crucial reference for all students and scholars of modern and Middle Eastern poetry and culture. Noted Syrian intellectual Nasser Rabbat offers a compelling foreword.

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Author
Adonis (Ali Ahmad Said) has written poetry, criticism, translations, and anthologies for fifty years. He has won numerous international poetry awards and was a finalist for the 2003 Nobel Prize for Literature.

Shawkat M. Toorawa is professor in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Cornell University. He is coauthor of Interpreting the Self: Autobiography in the Arabic Literary Tradition and author of the forthcoming Ibn Abi Tahir Tayfur and Arabic Writerly Culture.

With a Foreword by Nasser Rabbat

51/2 x 71/2, 224 pages, bibliography, glossary, appendixes
Bilingual Edition