كتب – Book[s]
Etel Adnan
'My love
is the essence
of my existence.'
Etel Adnan was a Lebanese-American poet, essayist, and visual artist. This present volume, Book of the Sea, Book of Night, Book of Death, Book of the End, presented as Book[s], was first published in Arabic in 1994 by Dar Amwaj, rendered from its original French into Arabic by Abid Azarih. While Adnan’s literary and poetic oeuvre is widely disseminated in French and English, her Arabic-language publications remain comparatively scarce and less immediately accessible.
Despite being raised in a predominantly Arabic-speaking milieu, Adnan’s early linguistic environment was shaped by Greek and Turkish. Educated in French convent schools, she initially composed her writings in French before acquiring fluency in English, which later became the primary language of much of her literary output. This compendium of Book[s] thus occupies a distinctive position within her corpus – both a literary curiosity and a rare testament to her engagement with Arabic, a language she navigated from a position of multiplicity and transnational complexity.
Arabic, frequently portrayed as either imperilled or menacing, exists beyond these dichotomies as a dynamic, evolving linguistic tradition of immense literary consequence. It is characterised by a high-low diglossic structure: the ‘high’ register, al-arabiyya al-fusha, or Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), serves as the official medium of instruction and writing across the Arab world, possessing an intrinsic gravitas as the sacred script of the Qur’an.
Yet, its syntactical intricacy renders it a formidable linguistic challenge, even for native speakers, particularly when juxtaposed with the fluid, idiomatic ‘low’ vernaculars such as Egyptian Arabic. Some ardent proponents of MSA articulate concerns regarding the dilution of an esteemed heritage, often viewing it as emblematic of pan-Arab unity and resistance to imperial encroachment.
In the 1960s, Adnan began integrating Arabic calligraphy into her artworks and artist’s books (Livres d’Artistes), engaging with language as both a semantic and visual phenomenon. She recounted spending hours transcribing Arabic grammar without comprehending the words’ meanings – an exercise profoundly shaped by the hurufiyya movement. Pioneered by figures such as Iraqi artist Jawad Salīm, Palestinian writer and artist Jabra Ibrāhīm Jabra, and Iraqi painter Shākir Hassan al-Saīd, hurufiyya sought to reconcile modernist abstraction with traditional Arabic script, forging a distinctly Arab artistic identity that eschewed Western paradigms.
Inspired by Japanese leporellos, Adnan also produced panoramic landscape paintings on foldable screens, which she described as “extending in space like free-standing drawings.” This format underscores her commitment to visual storytelling – but her commitment to poetry also needs to be understood as an essential aspect of her broader ouevre of artistic expression. While her leporellos and paintings have garnered widespread acclaim in Western art circles, her written works – such as L’Apocalypse Arabe (The Arab Apocalypse) – underscore her engagement with Arabic as both a linguistic and pictorial medium rich with opportunity for play, experimentation and expression beyond the confines of rigid linguistic conformity.
Adnan’s exploration of the leporello format places her within a lineage of artists who have also embraced the accordion-fold book as a means of visual and narrative experimentation. Zaid Shawwā’s Encounter navigates themes of displacement and belonging through an expansive sequence, while Ali Cherri’s The Book of Mud engages with materiality and historical memory. Mohammed Al-Shammarey’s Baghdad intricately layers calligraphy, image and archival material, echoing the city’s complex history. As a constituent of this broader tradition, Adnan’s work resonates not only with the legacies of Arabic calligraphy and modernist abstraction, but also with a global continuum of artists redefining the book as a space for artistic innovation.
May 2025
Japanese Hand-Sewn Paperback
148.5 x 210 mm – 80pp
+ Insert – 105 x 148.5mm – 8pp
Conversely, advocates of integrating colloquial dialects into formal domains are frequently accused of fragmenting Arab identity in favour of narrower, nationalist constructs. In Adnan’s case, these linguistic tensions manifest acutely in the multilingual landscape of her own Beirut and the broader Arab literary sphere. Lebanon’s linguistic topography – defined by Arabic, French, and English – can function as both a cultural and political delineator. While Arabic remains the dominant tongue, the lingering vestiges of colonial history ensure that nearly half the population speaks French to some extent, with sixty-five percent of schoolchildren receiving formal instruction in the language.
Though not a rigid determinant, linguistic allegiance often correlates with sectarian and cultural identities; for instance, Francophone advocacy within Lebanon’s Maronite Christian community is sometimes construed as an assertion of a distinct Lebanese identity apart from the Arab world. As a result, Lebanon has cultivated a prolific Francophone literary tradition, paralleling the contributions of African Francophone writers to global French literature, yet with a uniquely Francophilic bent. Although Arabic retains primacy in Lebanon, linguistic affiliations remain deeply inscribed within cultural and ideological spheres, contributing to imagined communities that coalesce within the broader national and diasporic consciousness.
Nonetheless, linguistic fluidity is a hallmark of Lebanese identity, with many individuals navigating seamlessly between Arabic, French, and English. Beirut, in particular, distinguishes itself as a hub of literary translation, fostering a cosmopolitan intellectual tradition that both embraces and subverts linguistic hegemonies. Adnan, resisting conventional classifications, repudiated the ‘Francophone’ label, instead identifying as an Arab or a Greek-Damascene writer working in English and French – a self-definition shaped by her (self-described) limited formal education in Arabic during her childhood in Beirut.
Although Adnan is best known for her abstract paintings, her artistic and literary practices are inextricably intertwined. Her earliest visual compositions were executed with a palette knife, applying oil paint directly onto the canvas in assertive, gestural strokes. Her compositions frequently centre on a striking red square, emblematic of her preoccupation with the inherent expressiveness of colour. Adnan acknowledged Paul Klee as a pivotal influence; both artists shared an affinity for intimate-scale works, diverse media, and syncretic artistic methodologies.
Critical analyses of Adnan’s literary output have proliferated over the past decades, notably in the scholarly anthology Etel Adnan: Critical Essays on the Arab-American Writer and Artist, edited by Lisa Suhair Majaj and Amal Amireh. Likewise, the Galerie Lelong & Co. publication Etel Adnan: Leporellos has carefully catalogued a collection of remarkable works by Adnan in this form.
Therefore, this present republication does not endeavour to reassess or recontextualise Adnan’s contributions to literature, poetry, or the visual arts; nor does this particular edition of Book[s] adhere to the leporello format for the books themselves, more so just for the brief, printed accompanying editorial note. We seek instead to preserve for posterity one of the more esoteric, singular and historically resonant texts within her expansive, incredible body of work in an accessible and respectful container.