Paris- based Syrian-Lebanese Arab poet Adonis has been chosen for this year’s Kumaran Asan World Prize for poetry, instituted by the Kumaran Asan Memorial Association to honour poets of international stature and introduce them to Indian readers.
“We didn’t have to think twice to pick out Adonis as he is the most prominent voice in world poetry today”, said the jury comprising K. Jayakumar, Vice-Chancellor, Thunchathu Ezhuthachan Malayalam University and writers M.M Basheer and T. P Rajeevan at a press-meet convened in Calicut Press Club here, to announce the award.
“Though separated by more than a century, Asan and Adonis have a lot in common as poets. Both are great modernizers in their language, Asan in Malayalam and Adonis in Arabic, and they share a spontaneous urge for freedom and social reformation without compromising traditional values”, the jury said.
Adonis, author of more than twenty volumes of poetry in Arabic and widely translated into almost all languages is a perennial contender for the Nobel Prize for many years. Born Ali Ahmad Said Esber in Western Syria in 1930, he was imprisoned for a while because of his secular and nationalistic positions. Since 1985, he is settled in Paris.
If Only the Sea Could Sleep, Pages of Day and Night, Songs of Mihyar the Damascene, Not A Star, A Voice, A King is Miyhar, The Adoring Rock, Take me to God are his important works. The award consisting of a cash prize of Rs 3 lakh, a memento and citation will be presented to him on Sunday, May 3, at a function at Kayikara, birthplace of Kumaran Asan, in Thiruvananthapuram district.
