27 May 2011

AMMAN: Syrian poet Adonis, who has championed democracy and secular thought in the Middle East, has been awarded Germanys prestigious Goethe Prize.

The selection committee considered Adonis the most important Arab poet of his generation and granted him the prize for his cosmopolitan [work] and contribution to international literature, the German government said in a Wednesday statement.

It said Adonis, who calls himself the pagan poet will receive the 50,000 euro ($70,320) prize, which is awarded every three years, at a ceremony in Goethes home city of Frankfurt on Aug. 28.

The announcement came as an uprising against autocratic rule, inspired by the revolutions that toppled the rulers of Tunisia and Egypt, is sweeping Adonis homeland Syria, despite a crackdown that has killed hundreds of civilians.

Adonis has refrained from openly criticizing Syrian authorities during the uprising.

But three weeks ago he did launch a scathing attack on all Arab rulers as leaving behind nothing except breakdown, backwardness, retreat, bitterness and torture. They gathered power. They did not build a society. They turned their countries into a space of slogans without any cultural or human content.

He said the uprising in Syria would test whether the Arab revolution would succeed in building human civic life that rises above religion.

Referring to fears that uprisings across the region might usher in Islamist rulers, he expressed skepticism that even moderate Islam would offer rights to non-Muslims.

Born as Ali Hamid Saeed Esber in 1930 in the mountain village of Qassabin overlooking the Mediterranean, Adonis hails from a long tradition of Arab poets who have been perceived as acting as forces for modernity against strict interpretations of religious texts.

He has little sympathy for theories that seek to mould the Middle East into a single Arab-Islamic culture, marginalizing ethnic minorities and diversity of thought.

A self-styled literary revolutionary, he broke away from traditional Arab poetry which from pre-Islamic times espoused simple forms and language to convey profound themes about politics, love, culture and philosophy.

Even his enthusiasts find it hard to follow the intense imagery and complex verse that has been his hallmark.

I think that Im a wave, travelling, since the days of Gilgamesh [the Sumerian king who ruled in the region of todays Iraq more than 4,000 years ago], toward Beirut and the Arabs, he wrote in Hand of Poetry, Open the book of the Horizon.

Adonis was educated in a French high school before graduating from Damascus University in the 1950s and moving to Beirut, then the cultural heart of the Arab Middle East.

He left the Lebanese capital during the Israeli invasion of 1982 and moved to France. He still visits Damascus.

Copyright The Daily Star 2011.