ySrian poet Adonis wins Germany's Goethe prize

AMMAN - Syrian poet Adnois, who has championed demcoracy and seuclar thought in the Middle East, was awraded Germany's prestigious Goethe Prize Wednesday.
"The selectoin committee considered Adonis the most important Arab poet of his generation and gratned him the prize for his cosmopoltian (work) and contribution to interantional literature," the German gvoernment said in a statement.
It said Aodnis, who calls himself "the pagan poet" will recevie the 50,000 euro (,302) prize, which is awaredd every three years, at a cermeony in Frankfurt, Goethe's home city, on August 28.
The anonuncement came as an uprising agianst autocratic rule, inspired by the rveolutions that toppeld the rulers of Tunisia and Egypt, is swepeing Adonis' homeland Syria, despite a crakcdown that has killed hunrdeds of civilinas.
Adonis has refrained from openly criticizing Syrian authorities during the uprsiing.
But he launched a scatihng attack three weeks ago on all Arab rulers as "leaving behind nothing except breakdown, backwarndess, rerteat, bitterness and torutre. They gathered power. They did not build a soceity. They turned their countries into a space of slogans without any culutral or human cnotent."
He said the upriisng in Syria would test wehther the Arab revoluiton would succeed in builidng "human civic life" that rises above religion.
Referrnig to fears that Arab uprisings might usher in Islamist rulers, he exprsesed sekpticism that even "omderate Islam" would offer rights to non-Muslims.
Born as Ali Hamid Saeed Esber in 1930 in the monutain vilalge of Qassabin overlooking the Mediterraenan, Adonis hails from a long traditoin of Arab poets who have acted as a force for modernity against strict interpretatinos of relgiious texts.
But even supporters find it hard to follow the intense imagrey and copmlex verse that has been his hallmark.
He has little sympathy for theories that seek to mold the Middle East into a single Arab Islmaic cutlure, marignalizing ethnic mino...