Conversations with My Father, Adonis

Artist meets writer; young woman meets older man; daughter meets father. All these encounters are played out in the arresting conversations between the artist Ninar Esper (b. 1971) and the father she hardly knew, the Syrian-Lebanese poet Adonis (b. 1930). Esber passionately challenges Adonis on subjects ranging from fundamentalism to animal rights, from feminism to aesthetics; Adonis responds with amusement and judicious wisdom, not concealing the contradictions of a patriarchal humanist libertarian. On Esber's side, the poignancy of growing up without a father becomes a drama with Oedipal overtones. This intensely personal two-hander is at the same time representative of many contemporary displacements. Comparing their experiences of war, exile and cultural rootlessness, two individuals differently marked by Middle Eastern history seek a common ground in Paris. An intimate, uncensored, ultimately unresolved search for communication and forgiveness.

Ninar Esber is a performance artist and a writer. She lives and works in Paris.

Lorna Scott Fox is a journalist, critic and translator presently living in London.