On the Passing of Etel Adnan
by the RAWI Board of Directors
The Board of the Radius of Arab American Writers (RAWI) grieves the passing of an extraordinary human and literary titan: Etel Adnan. Adnan’s contributions to RAWI in particular and to the storytelling world broadly cannot be overstated. Her life’s work creates a beacon for those in the Southwest Asian and North African diaspora, lighting a path for those among us who need or wish to speak and write in a world that often silences us. Adnan’s life was spent between borders, as was her vision for poetry and art, challenging us all to use the spoken and written word as a tool for deconstructing boundaries that restrict us. Her long and prolific career reveals an artist whose distinctive lens for the world was keenly applied to beauty, grief, longing, war, and, presciently, to preparing us for her own death: “The morning after/my death/we will sit in cafés/but I will not/be there/I will not be.”
The loss of Etel Adnan is deeply felt among us at RAWI. While she may no longer be here, her legacy and life remain sharply engraved on our hearts and in our minds.
– The RAWI Board, November 14, 2021
Etel Adnan. Photo by Simone Fattal.
