Ali Ahmad Said Asbar (Arabic: علي أحمد سعيد إسبر) (born 1930), also known by the pseudonym Adonis or Adunis (Arabic: أدونيس), is a Syrian poet and essayist who has made his career largely in Lebanon and France. He has written more than twenty books in his native Arabic.
Adonis is a pioneer of modern Arabic poetry. He is often seen as a rebel, an iconoclast who follows his own rules.
Adonis was considered to be a candidate for the 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008 Nobel Prize in Literature, but the awards went to British playwright Harold Pinter, Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk, British novelist Doris Lessing and French novelist Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio. In 2007 he was awarded the Bjørnson Prize.
Charlie Rose interviews Adonis on the occasion of the publication of a translation into English of his ‘book of poems’ titled: Mihyar of Damascus, His Songs.
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