Ali Ahmad Said

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Ali Ahmad Said Asbar (Arabic: علي أحمد سعيد إسبر; transliterated: alî ahmadi s-sacîdi l-'asbar or Ali Ahmad Sa'id) (born 1930), also known by the pseudonym Adonis or Adunis (Arabic: أدونيس), is a Syrian-born poet and essayist who has made his career largely in Lebanon and France. He has written more than twenty books in his native Arabic.

1 Early life, education, and start of career
2 Career
3 Bibliography
- 3.1 Poetry
- 3.2 Literary criticism and essays
4 References
5 External links

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Early life, education, and start of career

Said was born in Al Qassabin, in Northern Syria. From an early age, he worked in the fields, but his father regularly had him memorize poetry, and he began to compose poems of his own. In 1947 he had the opportunity to recite a poem for Syrian president Shukri al-Kuwatli; that led to a series of scholarships, first to a school in Latakia and then to the Syrian University in Damascus, where he received a degree in Philosophy in 1954.

The name Adonis was given to Said by Antun Saada, the leader of the Syrian National Party, a quasi-fascist party that advocated Syrian dominance over a wide swath of the Middle East. In 1955 Said was imprisoned for six months for being a member of the that party. Following his release from prison in 1956, he settled in Beirut, Lebanon, where in 1957 he and Syro-Lebanese poet Yusuf al-Khal founded the magazine Shi'r ("Poetry"). At this time, he abandoned Syrian nationalism in favor of pan-Arabism; he also became a less political writer.

Said received a scholarship to study in Paris from 1960-1961. From 1970 to 1985 he was professor of Arabic literature at the University of Lebanon. In 1976, he was a visiting professor at the University of Damascus. In 1980 he emigrated to Paris to escape the Lebanese Civil War. In 1980-1981, he was professor of Arabic at the Sorbonne in Paris.

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Career

Said uses traditional Arab poetic styles to express modern views. Said proposes that poetry has two components -- song and function. A poet must be judged by the causes that he champions. The poet has two sides - the "I" and the "other". The poet must represent the group.

After 9/11, Said wrote a poem about New York.

New York is a woman
holding, according to history,
a rag called liberty with one hand'
and strangling the earth with the other.

Said was considered to be a candidate for the 2005 Nobel Prize in Literature, but the award went to British playwright Harold Pinter. Many of Said's supporters were critical of that choice.

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Bibliography

Said has written over twenty books in his native Arabic. A few of his poetry collections have been translated into English.

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Poetry

If Only the Sea Could Sleep (trans from Al-A'mul al Shi'riyya, (The Complete Works, 3 volumes) (2000) ISBN 1931243298
The Pages of Day and Night
The blood of Adonis;: Transpositions of selected poems of Adonis (Ali Ahmed Said) (Pitt poetry series) ISBN 082293213X
Songs of Mihyar the Damamscene (1960) poems available online include:
Take me to God