Etel Adnan byla umělkyně, která se ve své tvorbě zabývala průsečíkem identity, politiky a umění. Její psaní často zkoumalo dopady války a kolonialismu na jednotlivce a společnost, přičemž se inspirovalo jejími zkušenostmi z Libanonu, Alžírska a Vietnamu. Adnanina stylistická obratnost spočívala v propojování osobní reflexe s širšími sociálními a historickými narativy. Její díla, napsaná ve francouzštině i angličtině, odrážejí její hledání hlasu a formy uměleckého vyjádření navzdory jazykovým a kulturním hranicím.
V poezii si umělkyně, v kontrastu ke svému malířskému dílu, všímá spíše pochmurných či melancholických stránek života. Sleduje a – dříve než ostatní – negativně hodnotí změny životního prostřední. Environmentální žal organicky protkává žalem osobním. Otevírá otázky identity, paměti, lásky i smrti. Její básně jsou intimním dopisem na rozloučenou s láskou či životem jako takovým, erudovanou filozofickou rozpravou o povaze bytí i trpkou politickou obžalobou lidského jednání v rámci světa, jehož je člověk součástí.
A heart-rending meditation on aging, grief, and the universal experience of facing deathShifting the Silence does just that, breaks the social taboo around writing and speaking about our own deaths. In short unrelenting paragraphs, Adnan enumerates her personal struggle to conceptualize the breadth of her own life at 95, the process of aging, and the knowledge of her own inevitable death. The personal is continuously projected outwards and mirrored back through ruminations on climate catastrophe, California wildfires, the on-going war in Syria, planned missions to Mars, and the view of the sea from Adnan's window in Brittany in a poignant often painful interplay between the interior and the cosmic.
The work offers a profound exploration of the Arab world's tumultuous experiences, showcasing Etel Adnan's poetic prowess. It captures a chaotic yet vibrant journey through the complexities of identity and existence, reflecting on themes of hope and despair amidst conflict. The text serves as a unique cartography of contemporary Middle Eastern realities, presenting a rich tapestry of imagery that resonates deeply with the reader. Enhanced by a new foreword, it invites engagement at any point, emphasizing the fluidity and urgency of its themes.
Fiction. Etel Adnan's novel PARIS, WHEN IT'S NAKED amazes our retinas, ears, lips, fingertips, and noses with sensing, talking, and envisioning the city of Baudelaire and Delacroix, Mallarme and Picasso, Sartre and Djuna Barnes, Miller and Nin, Vietnamese and African refugees, revolutions and Bohemia. This tale of the Creative Now is told through the fine-tuned sensibility of Etel Adnan, the expatriate poet-painter who knows the French Capital as wholly as she does Beirut and San Francisco, her other homes. She is also the author of SITT MARIE-ROSE, an underground novel of the Lebanese Civil War, and many books of poetry. Her new work is a philosophically charged lyric in prose. The elan vital of every word evokes the eternal present of this wise woman. A highly personal, life-enhancing masterpiece in a deathly age of impersonality. An indespensable book by an indispensable writer -Morgan Gibson.
A collection of stories about displacement, love, loss, poetry and war, from the Lebanese poet and painter who has been called “arguably the most celebrated and accomplished Arab-American author writing today” (Melus). The stories in Master of the Eclipse are populated by filmmakers, poets, girls, professors, and prostitutes who live in Beirut, Paris, Sicily, California, Saddam’s Iraq, and New York. The world of these stories is ours, with the same occupations and wars—a “world that would be a cemetery” were it not also a place where taxis are “yellow flowers floating down the avenues.” From the collection’s title story, a long meditation on history and war, power and poetry, to its concluding tale, a strangely quiet vision of a tree floating in a Damascus stream, Etel Adnan’s painterly vision, her cosmopolitan flexibility, and her philosophical bent are on full display. This is a woman, after all, trained in philosophy at the Sorbonne, Harvard, and the University of California at Berkeley, who became a painter, and then a poet. Her voice comes to us as something the opposite of her title: She is a master of light and revelation, of language, variety, and color.
