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Article: Adonis. Mihyar of Damascus: His Songs.(Book review)
- Article from:
- World Literature Today
- Article date:
- May 1, 2009
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2009 University of Oklahoma. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Adonis. Mihyar of Damascus: His Songs. Adnan Haydar & Michael Beard, trs. Rochester, New York. BOA. 2008. 120 pages. $16. ISBN 978-1-93441408-8
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As the translators of this volume point out in their apposite introduction, although Adonis has, in the fifty years since these poems first appeared, come to be associated with numerous innovations and ruptures, "the poems of Mihyar constitute the intial definitive disruption." Indeed, many critics and poets regard Mihyar as a turning point for Arabic poetry in general.
That it has taken forty-seven years for this signal work in the history of Arabic--and world--literature to be ...