Etel Adnan (Arabic: إيتيل عدنان; 24 February 1925 – 14 November 2021) was a Lebanese-American poet, essayist, and visual artist. In 2003, Adnan was named "arguably the most celebrated and accomplished Arab American author writing today" by the academic journal MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States.[1]
Besides her literary output, Adnan made visual works in a variety of media, such as oil paintings, films and tapestries, which have been exhibited at galleries across the world.
Ethel N. Adnan was born in 1925 in Beirut, Lebanon.[2][3] Adnan's mother Rose "Lily" Lacorte was Greek Orthodox from Smyrna and her father Assaf Kadri was a Sunni Muslim-Turkish high-ranking Ottoman officer born in Damascus, Ottoman Syria. Assaf Kadri's mother was Albanian.[4] Adnan's grandfather was a Turkish soldier.[5][6] Her father came from a wealthy family; he was a top officer and former classmate of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk at the military academy.[6] Prior to marrying Adnan's mother, her father was already married with three children.[6] In contrast, Adnan's mother was raised in extreme poverty; her parents met in Smyrna during World War I while her father was serving as Governor of Smyrna. After the Ottoman Empire collapsed and Smyrna was burned during the Occupation of Smyrna, Adnan's parents migrated to Beirut. Adnan has stated that her mother was 16 years old when she met her father, at a time when "the Greeks in Turkey were in concentration camps."[7][8] Though she grew up speaking Greek and Turkish in a primarily Arabic-speaking society, she was educated at French convent schools and French became the language in which her early work was first written.[9] She also studied English in her youth, and most of her later work has been first written in this language.[citation needed]
At 24, Adnan traveled to Paris where she received a degree in philosophy from the University of Paris.[7] She then traveled to the United States where she continued graduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley and at Harvard University.[7] From 1958 to 1972, she taught philosophy of art at the Dominican University of California in San Rafael.[7] She has also lectured at many universities throughout the United States.[citation needed]
Adnan returned from the US to Lebanon and worked as a journalist and cultural editor for Al-Safa Newspaper, a French-language newspaper in Beirut. In addition, she also helped build the cultural section of the newspaper, occasionally contributing cartoons and illustrations. Her tenure at Al-Safa was most notable for her front-page editorials, commenting on the important political issues of the day.[10]
In her later years, Adnan began to openly identify as lesbian.[11]
Adnan lived in Paris and Sausalito, California.[12] She died in Paris on 14 November 2021, at the age of 96.[13][14]Adnan also worked as a painter, her earliest abstract works were created using a palette knife to apply oil paint onto the canvas – often directly from the tube – in firm swipes across the picture's surface. The focus of the compositions often being a red square, she remains interested in the "immediate beauty of colour".[15][16] In 2012, a series of the artist's brightly colored abstract paintings were exhibited as a part of documenta 13 in Kassel, Germany.[17]
In the 1960s, she began integrating Arabic calligraphy into her artworks and her books, such as Livres d’Artistes [Artist's Books]. She recalls sitting for hours copying words from an Arabic grammar without trying to understand the meaning of the words. Her art is very much influenced by early hurufiyya artists including; Iraqi artist, Jawad Salim, Palestinian writer and artist, Jabra Ibrahim Jabra and Iraqi painter Shakir Hassan al Said, who rejected Western aesthetics and embraced a new art form which was both modern and yet referenced traditional culture, media and techniques.[18]
Inspired by Japanese leporellos, Adnan also paints landscapes on to foldable screens that can be "extended in space like free-standing drawings".[15]
In 2014, a collection of the artist's paintings and tapestries were exhibited as a part of the Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art.[12]
Adnan's retrospective at Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha, titled "Etel Adnan In All Her Dimensions" and curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, featured eleven dimensions of Adnan's practice. It included her early works, her literature, her carpets, and others. The show was launched in March 2014, accompanied by a 580-page catalog of her work published jointly by Mathaf and Skira. The catalog was designed by artist Ala Younis in Arabic and English, and included text contributions by Simone Fattal, Daniel Birnbaum, Kaelen Wilson-Goldie, as well as six interviews with Hans-Ulrich Obrist.[citation needed]
In 2017, Adnan's work was included in "Making Space: Women Artists and Postwar Abstraction," a group exhibition organized by MoMA, which brought together prominent artists including Ruth Asawa, Gertrudes Altschul, Anni Albers, Magdalena Abakanowicz, Lygia Clark, and Lygia Pape, among others.[19][20]
In 2018, MASS MoCA hosted a retrospective of the artist, titled "A yellow sun A green sun a yellow sun A red sun a blue sun", including a selection of paintings in oil and ink, as well as a reading room of her written works.[21] The exhibition explored how the experience of reading poetry differs from the experience of looking at a painting.[22]
Published in 2018, "Etel Adnan", a biography of the artist written by Kaelen Wilson-Goldie, inquires into the artist's work as a shaman and activist.[23][24] In 2020, the Griffin Poetry Prize is awarded to her book Time.[25]
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Sitt Marie Rose is a novel by Etel Adnan set before and during the 1975-1990 Lebanese Civil War. It was published in France in 1978,[1] following the publication of an Arabic translation in 1977. It is based on the life of Marie Rose Boulos[2] who was executed by a Christian militia during the conflict. The novel itself acts as a critique of various aspects of Lebanese culture, including critiques of xenophobia as well as the role of women.
While historically French political influence in Lebanon ended with the French Mandate in 1943 the continued cultural influence of the West helped to create a diversity in the character of Lebanon. Adnan uses the contrasts of the Western and Eastern influences on Beirut to illustrate the major themes of the novel. The role of women within Lebanese society is paid extra attention as the latter half of the novel is a dramatization of the death of Marie Rose Boulos. Marie Rose Boulos was an immigrant from Syria who taught deaf-mute children and helped to organize social services for Palestinian camps.
Adnan wrote Sitt Marie Rose in 1977 in French. That same year it was translated and published in Arabic. However, due to the nature of the novel it was marketed in Muslim West Beirut but not Christian East Beirut.[2]
The novel begins before the civil war with an unnamed female narrator describing her friend Mounir's desire to make a movie based on Syrian immigrants who come to work in Lebanon. After this brief section, the novel turns its attention solely to the death of Sitt Marie Rose as perceived by seven different characters.
The novel is divided into two “Times”: “Time I” and “Time II.”
Time I offers a description of prewar Beirut with Mounir wanting the female narrator of this section to write the script for his film. As Time I progress the violence that is mentioned as happening in Beirut escalates into what becomes the Lebanese Civil War. At the end of Time I the narrator tells Mounir that she cannot write a film for him given that Mounir repudiates the narrator's suggestions for film on the grounds that they are too violent and political.
Time II is divided into three sections with seven chapters each. One chapter in each section is devoted to relating the events surrounding the death of Sitt Marie Rose from the perspective of one of the narrators. The narrators always follow the following order in each of the three sections: the deaf-mute school children that Sitt Marie Rose teaches, Sitt Marie Rose herself, Mounir, Tony, Fouad, Friar Bouna Lias, and the unnamed narrator from Time I.
The deaf-mutes that Sitt Marie Rose teaches speak with a singular voice. No individual child is ever attributed as speaking at a given time, rather they speak with a collective voice, like a Greek chorus. The deaf-mutes look up to and respect Sitt Marie Rose greatly, and they wish they could be of more help to her.
Sitt Marie Rose is the title character of the novel, throughout which her challenges to the status quo that Mounir, Tony, and Fouad are protecting are repeatedly made. The novel culminates with her death at the hands of her captors. She is initially captured for helping the PLO, as well as living and being romantically involved with a Palestinian doctor who is a PLO official.
Mounir is a childhood friend of Sitt Marie Rose. Having been attracted to her during their childhood he struggles with his desire to perform his duty as a leader of the Chabab militia and with trying to persuade Sitt Marie Rose to abandon her cause and take up his so that the militia may spare her life. Mounir, Tony, Fouad, Bona Lias, and Sitt Marie Rose are all Christians.
Tony and Fouad are friends of Mounir. In Time I a film is shown of the two of them hunting with Mounir. Time II has them acting as militia men underneath Mounir. Fouad is very violent and enjoys killing. He is by far the most cruel character in the book and his mind is always set on death and torture. Tony has no respect for any women in the book and has a very violent disposition similar to Fouad.
Friar Bouna Lias is a clergyman in league with the Chabab. Throughout Time II he tries to get Sitt Marie Rose to confess her sins of helping the Palestinians and abandoning the cause that her countrymen are fighting for.
The unnamed narrator sets up the atmosphere of prewar Beirut in Time I and comments on the events of Sitt Marie Rose's death from a time after her actual death. Unlike the other characters in Time II she speaks in the past tense concerning Sitt Marie Rose rather than in the present tense.
Gender is one of the several major themes of Sitt Marie Rose. It is evident in Time I with the indirect speech of the women.[3] With the exception of when the narrator talks with Mounir, women's speech in Time I is related through paraphrasing rather than direct quotation. This paraphrasing has the effect of alienating women by not relating their speech yet including them as the sum of what they say is still related. In hand with this is the portrayal of women as being nothing more than accessories for the “modern” Lebanese man*. It is this modernity that Sitt Marie Rose possesses and which places her in danger. By virtue of being “modern” Sitt Marie Rose challenges the status quo of her surroundings and tries to help the Palestinian cause. Sitt Marie Rose's modernity effectively attracts and alienates Mounir as it is the cause for her transgressions of the expected role of women in Lebanese society.[3]
For Mounir, Tony, and Fouad, the world exists as a series of hierarchies, with the French above the Lebanese who are above Syrians as well as gendered hierarchy of Lebanese society that prejudices the militia's opinion of Marie Rose.[3] By extension, Mounir longs for a Lebanon under the direct influence of Europe while aspiring to hold modern sensibilities (given his behavior towards Sitt Marie Rose). Marie Rose herself blames the influence of the Jesuits as being responsible for the behavior of Lebanese men. This point is illustrated with the portrayal of the Crusades as put on by the French priests, invigorating the young Lebanese men to reject their cultural heritage and yearn for the influence of the West.
Another major theme is the cause of the Lebanese Civil War. Sitt Marie Rose argues that the outbreak of the war is the fault of both the Christians and the Muslims.[1] This is especially evident with the character of Bouna Lias who supports the Chabab as they are “fighting for the road that leads to the divine”. Mounir however claims that he and the Chabab are fighting to reinforce the state in a conflict that will end with a clear victor and a clearly vanquished enemy.[2] The novel undermines Bouna Lias’ position and qualifies Mounir's by suggesting that rather than fight for a higher cause the war is being fought across class lines, as poor immigrants versus established natives.
Confounding all of this is the concept that a single idea can be put forward as speaking for all of the people in Lebanon. The representation of the deaf-mute children as a collective trying to learn to communicate with others who cannot understand them quite clearly contrasts the concept of Mounir's that a single voice can speak for everyone.
The above description of how the novel is split into two Times, one of which is further subdivided shows how, at an organizational level, the novel is an experiment of presentation and how a novel can be presented. Adnan's writings specifically go on to dramatize the contradictions between West and East, West and East Beirut, Muslim and Christian, Lebanese, Syrian, and Palestinian and how each of these sets of variables work together to spur on the civil war.[3]
Sitt Marie Rose won the Amitié Franco-Arab Prize (an award given by the Association de Solidarité Franco-Arabe) in 1977.[2]
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Etel Adnan, Lebanese American Author and Artist, Dies at 96
Her novel about a kidnapping in Lebanon has become a classic of war literature. She was in her 80s when her art started to draw international attention.
Etel Adnan, an influential Lebanese American writer who wrote a seminal novel about the Lebanese civil war and achieved acclaim in her later years as a visual artist, died on Sunday in Paris. She was 96.
Her death was confirmed by her longtime partner and only immediate survivor, Simone Fattal, who did not specify the cause.
For much of her life, Ms. Adnan, who grew up in Lebanon and spent several decades in California, was an international literary figure, her lyrical prose reverberating with generations of Middle Eastern writers.
Her most widely acclaimed novel, “Sitt Marie Rose,” (1978) based on a true story, centers on a kidnapping during Lebanon’s civil war and is told from the perspective of the civilians enduring brutal political conflict. It has become a classic of war literature, translated into 10 languages and taught in American classrooms.
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Ms. Adnan also wrote numerous collections of poetry. Her latest, “Shifting the Silence,” was published in October 2020. Reviewing her previous collection, “Night,” for The New York Times Book Review, Benjamin Hollander described it as “a meditative heir to Nietzsche’s aphorisms, Rilke’s ‘Book of Hours’ and the verses of Sufi mysticism,” and “an intricate thread of reflections on pain and beauty.”
In her poetry, novels and nonfiction, Ms. Adnan often wrote about political discord and violence. Her books on the Middle East, like “The Arab Apocalypse,” a poetry collection from 1980; “Of Cities and Women (Letters to Fawwaz),” from 1993; and “In the Heart of the Heart of Another Country” (2005), address the region from sociological, philosophical and historical perspectives.
Ms. Adnan caught the attention of the international art world in her late 80s, when her paintings were included in Documenta 13, the contemporary art exhibition in Kassel, Germany, in 2012. The invitation to the show resulted from a serendipitous visit by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Documenta 13’s director, to Lebanon, where she saw an exhibit of Ms. Adnan’s geometric and vibrantly colored abstract work on generally small canvases.
Since then, her work has appeared in numerous international exhibitions and art fairs, including the Whitney Biennial in New York in 2014. That same year, she was awarded France’s highest cultural honor, Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres. An exhibition of her work, “Etel Adnan: Light’s New Measure,” is currently on view at the Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan.
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Etel Adnan was born on Feb. 24, 1925, in Beirut, Lebanon. Her father, Assaf Kadri, a Syrian born in Damascus, was a retired high-ranking official in the Ottoman army and a former classmate of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founding father of the Republic of Turkey. Her mother, Rosa Kadri, grew up in the city of Smyrna (now the Turkish city of Izmir), which was largely destroyed by fire in 1922.
Her father changed the family’s surname to Adnan, which was his father’s first name, in 1932. Ms. Adnan has said that her father was “an unemployable man” by the age of 40 and that she grew up “with people who were defeated when they were still young.”
She left Lebanon in 1949 to study philosophy at the Sorbonne in Paris on a scholarship. A few years later, she moved to the United States for postgraduate studies in philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, and Harvard before settling in California. There, she took up teaching, including a class on the philosophy of art at Dominican College in San Rafael (now the Dominican University of California).
Ms. Adnan said she had been moved to begin writing verse as an act of opposition to the Vietnam War, becoming, in her words, “an American poet.”
Years earlier, in reverse fashion, it was her teaching that propelled her to the canvas.
“The head of the art department wondered how I can teach such a course without practicing painting,” she told The Paris Review Daily. “She gave me crayons and bits of paper, and I started doing little works, and she said I didn’t need any training, that I was a painter. So I kept going.”
She was 34 when she began to paint, in 1959.
Ms. Adnan returned to Lebanon in 1972 and shortly thereafter met Ms. Fattal, an artist, in Beirut. Ms. Adnan spent the next few years working as a cultural editor for two of the city’s daily newspapers.
After civil war broke out in 1975, she fled with Ms. Fattal to Paris. It was there that she wrote “Sitt Marie Rose,” which was originally published in French, the language she knew best. (Like many Lebanese people, she attended a French school while growing up and could be punished for speaking Arabic, she said.) The novel was unavailable in Lebanese bookstores for many years because its political undertones were deemed too controversial.
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Ms. Adnan returned to California in the late 1970s, living in Sausalito, in the Bay Area. There, the view out her window of Mount Tamalpais, northwest of San Francisco, became a repeated source of inspiration for her art, with abstract renderings of the mountain finding their way into her oil paintings.
In a review of Ms. Adnan’s work at Callicoon Fine Arts gallery on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in 2014, Karen Rosenberg wrote in The Times that the peak of Tamalpais was to Ms. Adnan what Mont Sainte-Victoire had been to Cézanne.
“We come to see Mount Tamalpais as both a specific landmark that offers reassurance to a nomadic artist (once exiled from her home country of Lebanon),” Ms. Rosenberg wrote, “and a universal idea of a mountain, upon which memories of different cultures can be projected.”
While she lived in several cities in her lifetime and spent her last years in Paris, Ms. Adnan continued to consider herself first and foremost as “a Californian artist.”
“I wouldn’t say American,” she told Apollo magazine in 2018. “The colors I use, the brightness — they are the colors of California.”
In addition to her taut yet cheerful paintings, Ms. Adnan also drew praise for her leporellos, books folded like an accordion on which she combined drawings, splashes of color and Arabic words and numbers. After discovering leporellos, which were popular with Japanese artists, she decided to appropriate the format for her own work.
In 2018, the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art presented a selection of Ms. Adnan’s paintings alongside some of her written works. The art critic Kaelen Wilson-Goldie, who has written a monograph on Ms. Adnan, wrote that a “fraught dualism between tranquillity and turbulence” permeated all of Ms. Adnan’s work, whether written or painted.
She added: “It is as if to say that this is us, we humans as tragically flawed creatures, who are capable of such splendor and ugliness all at once.”
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