Conversations With My Father, Adonis (Hardbound-2008)

Ninar Esber talks to her father, the poete Adonis, in ten very personal interviews about his education, his feelings about Islam, poetry, women, the veil, monotheism, terrorism, Lebanon where they lived before the war and his native Syria. Adonis, hostile to religious pressganging and more generally to all extremism, speaks with simplicity about sexuality, desire, marriage, fidelity, friendship, sensuality and creativity. Ninar, a provocative young and sincere woman, is virulently opposed to the way women are treated in muslim countries. Together, father and daughter are a double lesson in freedom.

Ninar Esber is a performance artist and a writer. Translated by Lorna Scott Fox