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Gibran's most famous book, written in English and published in 1923. As the sage Almustafa prepares to board the ship that will take him home after twelve…
Gibran's most famous book, written in English and published in 1923. As the sage Almustafa prepares to board the ship that will take him home after twelve years in the city of Orphalese, its people ask him about love, marriage, children, giving, work, joy and sorrow, freedom, reason and passion, pain, friendship, time, prayer, beauty, religion and death, and he answers in twenty-six short chapters of poetic prose. Some of its sentences are quoted all over the world: 'Work is love made visible'; 'Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.'
Context and significance
Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931), born in Bsharri in Lebanon and raised in Boston, was a painter as well as a writer and a leading member of the Arab émigré writers' Pen League in New York. Translated into dozens of languages, the book is still read aloud at weddings and funerals. His first book in English was The Madman.
About the author
Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) was born in Bsharri in Mount Lebanon and emigrated to Boston with his family at twelve. He first wrote in Arabic, including The Broken Wings, an early Arabic novel, then in English, where The Prophet (1923) became one of the most translated books of the century.
With Mikhail Naimy and Elia Abu Madi he founded the Pen League in New York, which renewed Arabic writing in the diaspora.