The Beauty of Light: Interviews

by Etel Adnan, Laure Adler, Ethan Mitchell (Translator)

A lively and spontaneous interview with Etel Adnan about her absolute belief in the beauty of the world and the beauty of art.  In these interviews with journalist and editor Laure Adler, conducted in the months before her death in November 2021, Etel Adnan traces with depth and emotion the founding experiences of her artistic approach, between poetry and painting. From her youth in Lebanon, her American years in New York and California, to her late recognition at Documenta in 2012 and her life in France, the conversation covers philosophy, painting, poetry and aesthetics, as well Adnan's views on history and politics in Europe, the Middle East, and the United States. These transcripts usher the experiences and observations of Adnan's long and rich life into an intimate and spontaneous conversation with a dear friend—a window on the “universe” of her imagination.

Genres: Poetry, Nonfiction, Art

144 pages, Paperback

First published March 25, 2022

About the author

Etel Adnan was born in Beirut, Lebanon in 1925. She studied philosophy at the Sorbonne, U.C. Berkeley, and at Harvard, and taught at Dominican College in San Rafael, California, from 1958–1972.

In solidarity with the Algerian War of Independence (1954–1962), Adnan began to resist the political implications of writing in French and became a painter. Then, through her participation in the movement against the Vietnam War (1959–1975), she began to write poetry and became, in her words, “an American poet.” In 1972, she returned to Beirut and worked as cultural editor for two daily newspapers—first for Al Safa, then for L’Orient le Jour. Her novel Sitt Marie-Rose, published in Paris in 1977, won the France-Pays Arabes award and has been translated into more than ten languages.

In 1977, Adnan re-established herself in California, making Sausalito her home, with frequent stays in Paris. Adnan is the author of more than a dozen books in English, including Journey to Mount Tamalpais (1986), The Arab Apocalypse (1989), In the Heart of the Heart of Another Country (2005), and Sea and Fog (2012), winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Poetry and the California Book Award for Poetry. Her most recent books are Night (2016) and Surge (2018). In 2014, she was awarded one of France’s highest cultural honors: l’Ordre de Chevalier des Arts et Lettres. Numerous museums have presented solo exhibitions of Adnan’s work, including SFMoMA; Zentrum Paul Klee; Institute du Monde Arabe, Paris; Serpentine Galleries; and Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Qatar.

Reviews

[Edita · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chance plays an immense role in our lives. We think we’re directing things, but we’re also directed by what’s happening around us.
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To observe the world is poetry. The world is exciting and when you don’t have lots of other children around, you speak to yourself, you look around more.
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I thought I had been born to read poetry. And that nothing else could be worth the trouble.
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LA: Woman artist or simply artist? Do you believe in God now?
EA: I don’t know what that means. I don’t think so. I don’t know. No, it’s very abstract. I believe there are certainly things we don’t know and don’t understand. We’re not the last word, that’s all. And it doesn’t go beyond that, but I believe in a universe that brings us together, as much as we are part of it. I believe anyway that we have, all human beings, things in common. And that’s important.

[Carrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Didn't want it to end, so I read super slowly.

[Jenina · Rating 5 out of 5]

“So, chance — whether it be inside a painting or daily life or in artistic decisions — chance collaborates with us.”

I keep believing in synchronicity (a recent development) even more because this book and spring arrived without my knowing. Time lounged on, like it was just passing by (with balmy ease). The search *is* difficult, but when it arrives, it’s a special parcel to unwrap.

And this book felt like an articulation of the resonance I could only experience in snippets prior. Now, the full picture reflected in a mirror for us to see better.

The beauty of deliberate aliveness.

[Suna Oz]

in den gesprächen von laure adler und etel adnan habe ich ganz viel über etel adnan als künstlerin gelernt, aber auch über das kunstmachen als lebensform, über malerei und farbe und landschaft. auch geschichtlich und kulturell fand ich sehr spannend, was adnan erzählt hat. was für eine inspirierende person.
ich hätte das buch im nachhinein sehr gerne auf englisch gelesen, ich mochte die deutsche übersetzung nicht soo gerne aber dann weiß ich das für zukünftige texte von ihr! außerdem fand ich die interviews stellenweise sehr redundant, es hätte mich gefreut, wenn an einigen stellen andere fragen gestellt worden wären, da sonst oft ähnliche geschichten erzählt wurden.
ich glaube, über dieses buch und diesen zugang zu kunst sogar mehr gelernt zu haben, als ich es gerade ahne und das fühlt sich schön an :)

[Cicely · Rating 2 out of 5]

Love listening to Etel Adnan talk but the interviewer was sooooo bad and annoying imo

[Katsia Lazar · Rating 5 out of 5]

To me, a good book lets you relate, feel something forgotten, or add color to some mundane impressions, it changes you and the room around you for the moment you are reading it. A great book changes everything not for an instant or the number of re-reads when you want to evoke the feeling, but it alters you for good. This collection of interviews, these meditations not on arty art but on life, on history traversing through us, on the matter of chance in our lives, and on humanity in its most innate form, made me spend hours getting acquainted with Etel Adnan and she might be the best person I’ve ever known even if only through the medium of her paintings, poems, interviews, even her photos.
It’s so popular now to read those types of books “Create Like an artist”, and they are good, but I think, it takes an artist to share what it can be - to create, and Etel has done it wonderfully. I cannot fully describe it but I feel deep sorrow, a blend of grief and regret that I haven’t come across her sooner, that it would be so much more beautiful to live in the world where she lives and continues to create. Whoever is open enough to the beauty of the world is in for a treat with this book.

[ff𓂃 ☠︎︎ ၴႅၴ · Rating 1 out of 5]

this was UNBEARABLE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! etel adnan is actually insufferable painful and i have lost all respect for her tbh and any interest in her work. it would be veryyyyy generous to say that possibly thiswas a bit lost in translation. bro anyone can drone on about being best friends with europeans and how much philosophy u read👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎

the word artist disturbs u.. girl stfu. SO INSUFFERABLE fr!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! wow!! so bad i had tell a random coworker about it. all i see is emptiness in her there's no substance and i dont like the way she thinks about and treats others. boring antivax freak; lives in la-la-land . H A T E

[Amber Verhulst · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a great way to start the year. Four stars, this was beautiful. Finished this while being stuck in traffic in Italy.

“Our life is determined by big decisions, but on the inside life isn’t determined. You can do something this afternoon that you didn’t plan to do. You can meet someone who will suddenly change your life without your having known it a few minutes prior. So, chance-whether it be inside a painting or in daily life or in artistic decisions-chance collaborates with us.”


Reminded me of you

[jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yes, this is the most important because you can't distance easily from yourself. You may as well make do. There's nothing else.

very sweet gift from jenina n so saturated in the fabled sensitivity. was telling jan i feel i can be so much more sensitive than i'm living rn. this was a nice tether <3

I don't want to be reasonable. I want to believe in a little bit of magic, that it will all work out, and there you go.

[Maisie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Several lines of this reached me— Adnan’s philosophy lectures, her definition of a landscape, love is an imaginative magic… Her afternoons in Beirut as a child, our loss of innocence today.
But I wanted more to be in the room with Adnan and Adler. The conversation lacked detail, and the book itself could’ve been half as long. Adler’s repeated questions surprised me— leaving dry, circles of thinking that enrich the first pages of the book.

[Michael Cai · Rating 4 out of 5]

"but today its spring. theres this beautiful light. look-the flowers in the vase. the olive tree on the balcony. its a good day. "

very french-with all the good and the bad: a collection of pretentious, profound, tumultuous, flowing musings on the nature of life. artist, philosopher, academic, writer etel adnan has lived many lives, and it shines through the haze of density.

closer to 3.5 imo but some exceptional excerpts compel me to round up rather than down. still worth reading.

[Jenny · Rating 3 out of 5]

"My paintings are compositions that reflect, that visually translate diverse experiences. I can't tell you it's this or that place. It's a collage of these places."

[Emma Shanti · Rating 5 out of 5]

luminous as ever

[Joe Skilton]

did not connect

[Carolyn Yao · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful collection of interviews. A must read for those who are artists who also love poetry and philosophy

[Alison Jeon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Couldn’t stop wishing for an interviewer who is able to have a real conversation… The stars go solely to Etel Adnan’s beautiful spirit.

[Sophie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read in 36 hours. A beautiful reflection of love and life, and the art in mindful living.

[Erica Lorenzana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sped through this. Memoir ish in interview format. Well it was an interview. Wishes I did something like this for my grandma

[Magdalena Arias · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely breathtaking, but then again, so is everything out of this woman's mind.

[Klara Plessis · Rating 5 out of 5]

This really meant something to me.

[Emily Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

El bought me and I loaned it to Aurie. Kinda wish I hadn’t.

[Katina Rogers · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a remarkable set of interviews. I loved Adnan’s perspective, the way she held some things so lightly and others carried profound importance.

[Elise]

it fills me with a strangely disabling joy whenever someone brings their universe into a conversation and so generously leads others inside of it 🥲

that's exactly what miss etel adnan does here Like! read from cover to cover in transit and couldn't put it down love love love always to learn about what people see and hear and do in their own corners of the world