If Only the Sea Could Sleep: Love Poems

Author winner of the America Award for Literature

One of the greatest poets of Arabic literature Adonis' work often centers on the process of poetic creation; his work has somehow remained highly appealing to Arab readers, and he has had, perhaps, more influence in terms of innovation and modernity than any other contemporary Arab poet. Twice he has been a finalist for the Nobel Prize. For Adonis, poetry is a vision ("ru'ya"), a "leap outside of established concepts, a change in the order of things and in the way we look at them." Selected from Al-A'mal al Shi'riyya (The Complete Works, 3 volumes) the current book explores the great Syrian poet's oeuvre in a way different from any other previous collection in English.