*Kahlil Gibran* (Gibran Khalil Gibran), born on January 6, 1883, to the Maronite family of Gibran in Bsharri, a mountainous area in Northern Lebanon, was a Lebanese-American artist, poet, writer, philosopher and theologian. He is the third-bestselling poet in history after William Shakespeare and Laozi.
*In Lebanon :* His mother Kamila Rahmeh was thirty when she begot Gibran from her third husband Khalil Gibran, who proved to be an irresponsible husband leading the family to poverty. Kamila's family came from a prestigious religious background, which imbued the uneducated mother with a strong will and later on helped her raise up the family on her own in the U.S. Being laden with poverty, Kahlil did not receive any formal education or learning, which was limited to regular visits to a village priest who doctrined him with the essentials of religion and the Bible, alongside Syriac and Arabic languages. At the age of ten, Gibran fell off a cliff, wounding his left shoulder, which remained weak for the rest of his life ever since this incident. To relocate the shoulder, his family strapped it to a cross and wrapped it up for forty days, a symbolic incident reminiscent of Christ's wanderings in the wilderness and which remained etched in Gibran's memory. At the age of eight, Khalil Gibran, Gibran's father, was accused of tax evasion and was sent to prison as the Ottomon authorities confiscated the Gibrans' property and left them homeless. The family went to live with relatives for a while; however, the strong-willed mother decided that the family should immigrate to the U.S., seeking a better life and following in suit to Gibran's uncle who immigrated earlier. The father was released in 1894, but being an irresponsible head of the family he was undecided about immigration and remained behind in Lebanon. On June 25, 1895, the Gibrans (Kamila, Kehlil, his half-brother and younger sisters, Mariana and Sultana) embarked on a voyage to the American shores of New York. *In United States :* The Gibrans settled in Boston's South End, which at the time hosted the second largest Syrian community in the U.S. following New York. The culturally diverse area felt familiar to Kamila, who was comforted by the familiar spoken Arabic, and the widespread Arab customs. Kamila, now the bread-earner of the family, began to work as a peddler, selling lace and linens on the impoverished streets of South End Boston. At the time, peddling was the major source of income for most Syrian immigrants, who were negatively portrayed due to their unconventional Arab ways and their supposed idleness. In the school, a registration mistake altered his name forever by shortening it to Kahlil Gibran, which remained unchanged till the rest of his life despite repeated attempts at restoring his full name. Gibran entered school on September 30, 1895, merely two months after his arrival in the U.S. Having no formal education, he was placed in an ungraded class reserved for immigrant children, who had to learn English from scratch. Gibran caught the eye of his teachers with his sketches and drawings, a hobby he had started during his childhood in Lebanon. At the age of fifteen, Gibran went back to Syria to study at a Maronite-run preparatory school and higher-education institute in Beirut. He stayed there for several years before returning to Boston in 1902. Two weeks before he got back, his sister Sultana died of tuberculosis at the age of 14. The next year, his brother Bhutros died of the same disease, and his mother died of cancer. His sister Marianna supported Gibran and herself by working at a dressmaker's shop *Art and Poetry :* Gibran's curiosity led him to the cultural side of Boston, which exposed him to the rich world of the theatre, Opera and artistic Galleries. Prodded by the cultural scenes around him and through his artistic drawings, Gibran caught the attention of his teachers at the public school, who saw an artistic future for the boy. They contacted Fred Holland Day, an artist and a supporter of artists who opened up Gibran's cultural world and set him on the road to artistic fame... Lebanese-American philosophical essayist, novelist, mystical poet, and artist. Gibran's works were especially influential in the American popular culture in the 1960s. In 1904 Gibran had his first art exhibition in Boston. From 1908 to 1910 he studied art in Paris with August Rodin. In 1912 he settled in New York, where he devoted himself to writing and painting. *Works :* Gibran's best-known work is *The Prophet*, a book composed of twenty-six poetic essays. Since it was first published in 1923, The Prophet has *never been out of print* and remains world-renowned to this day. Having been translated into more than twenty languages, it was one of the bestselling books of the twentieth century in the United States, second only to the Bible. One of his most notable lines of poetry in the English-speaking world is from 'Sand and Foam' (1926), which reads : 'Half of what I say is meaningless, but I say it so that the other half may reach you'. This was taken by John Lennon and placed, though in a slightly altered form, into the song Julia from The Beatles' 1968 album *The Beatles.* *Notable Works :(In English)* - *The Madman (1918) (downloadable free version<http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/5616>) * - *Twenty Drawings* (1919) - *The Forerunner* (1920) - The Prophet (1923) - *Sand and Foam* (1926) - *Kingdom Of The Imagination* (1927) - *Jesus, The Son of Man* (1928) - *The Earth Gods* (1931) *Posthumous, in English:* - *The Wanderer* (1932) - *The Garden of the Prophet*(1933) - *Lazarus and his Beloved* (1933) - *Prose and Poems* (1934) - *A Self-Portrait* (1959) - *Thought and Meditations* (1960) - *Spiritual sayings* (1962) - *Voice of the master* (1963) - *Mirrors of the Soul* (1965) - *Death Of The Prophet* (1979) - *The Vision* (1994) - *Eye of the Prophet* (1995) *Other:* - *Beloved Prophet, The love letters of Kahlil Gibran and Mary Haskell, and her private journal* (1972, edited by Virginia Hilu) * A Poem by Gibran : * *Friendship* * And a youth said, "Speak to us of Friendship." Your friend is your needs answered. He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving. And he is your board and your fireside. For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace. When your friend speaks his mind you fear not the "nay" in your own mind, nor do you withhold the "ay." And when he is silent your heart ceases not to listen to his heart; For without words, in friendship, all thoughts, all desires, all expectations are born and shared, with joy that is unacclaimed. When you part from your friend, you grieve not; For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain. And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit. For love that seeks aught but the disclosure of its own mystery is not love but a net cast forth: and only the unprofitable is caught. And let your best be for your friend. If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also. For what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill? Seek him always with hours to live. For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness. And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed. * *References :* - Wikipedia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalil_Gibran] - Cornell-Library [http://www.library.cornell.edu/colldev/mideast/gibrn.htm ] - Answers.com [http://www.answers.com/topic/khalil-gibran] ......................................................... ELC Team --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "English Learner's Cafe" group. 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