Songs of Mihyar the Damascene

The name "Mihyar" has no inherent meaning in Arabic, though its root letters mean "to destroy, topple, demolish." Mihyar is Adonis's poetic alter ego, his Zarathustra figure (in his own words), who has come to smash through any monolithic vision of Arab culture--including certain orthodox Islamic views--in favor of a more diverse and open-ended outlook. Songs of Mihyar is a masterpiece of world literature that rewrites--through Mediterranean myths and renegade Arabic mystics--what it means to be an Arab in the modern world.