INSTANT

A lebanese artist, poet and writer. born in the city of Bcharre in north lebanon before emigrating with his family to the United-States where he studied art and began his literature career.

He is mostly known for his 1923 book: "the Prophet", that sold, despite a cool critical reception, and became extremely popular in 1960's counterculture.

BIOGRAPHY

Gibran was born in the Christian Maronite town of Bsharri northern Lebanon. He did not receive any formal schooling during his youth. However, priests visited him regularly and taught him about the Bible, as well as the Arabic and Syriac languages.

Gibran's father initially worked in an apothecary but, with gambling debt he was unable to pay, he came to work for a local Ottoman-appointed administrator. Because of extensive complaints by angry subjects, the administrator was removed and his staff came under investigation in 1891. The elder Gibran went to prison for alleged embezzlement, and Ottoman authorities confiscated his family's property. Without a home, Gibran's mother decided to follow her brother and emigrate to the United States. Kamila Gibran remained resolved and, along with Khalil, his younger sisters Mariana and Sultana, and his elder half-brother Peter all left for New York on June 25, 1895.

Gibran’s mother along with his elder brother Peter wanted him to absorb more of his own heritage rather than just the Western aesthetic culture he was attracted to. So at the age of fifteen, Gibran went back to Lebanon to study at a Maronite-run preparatory school and higher-education institute in Beirut. He started a student literary magazine with a classmate, and was elected "college poet". He stayed there for several years before returning to Boston in 1902 coming through Ellis Island on May 10th. 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

- 1904 BOSTON, first art exhibition at Day's Studio (where he met Mary Elizabeth Haskell, his intimate friend and arguably lover for all the rest of his life, she did not only influenced his heart, but also his career);

- 1908 PARIS, studied art with Augustin Rodin. (where he met his art study partner Youssef Houwayek).

- 1918 USA, time when Gibran became to write regularly in english, his first book was titled: "The Madman" (Alfred Kinpof Publishing Company). Gibran took part of the "New York Pen League" known as the "Al Mahjar" with other important lebanese writers such as Ameen Rihani, Elya Abou Madi and Mikhael Naimeh.

Much of Gibran's writings dealt with Christianity, especially on the topic of spiritual love. His poetry is notable for its use of formal language, as well as insights on topics of life using spiritual terms. Gibran's best-known work is "The Prophet", a book composed of twenty-six poetic essays. The book became especially popular during the 1960s with the American counterculture and New Age movements. Since it was first published in 1923, "The Prophet" has never been printed. Having been translated into more than twenty languages, it was one of the bestselling books of the twentieth century in the United States.

- 1926 USA, one of his most notable books "Sand and Foam", which reads:

"Half of what I say is meaningless, but I say it so that the other half may reach you"  used by John Lenon in the song Julia of the Beatles'1968s album: the Beatles.

POLITICAL THOUGHT

Gibran was a prominent Syrian nationalist. In a political statement he drafted in 1911,^[he expresses his loyalty to Greater Syria and to the safeguarding of Syria's national territorial integrity. He also called for the adoption of Arabic as a national language of Syria and the application of Arabic at all school levels. When Gibran met `Abdu'l-Bahá in 1911-12, who traveled to the United States partly to promote peace, Gibran admired the teachings on peace but argued that Syrian lands should be freed from Ottoman control.

When the Ottomans were finally driven out of Syria during World War I, Gibran's exhilaration was manifested in a sketch called "Free Syria" which appeared on the front page of al-Sa'ih's special "victory" edition. Moreover, in a draft of a play, still kept among his papers, Gibran expressed great hope for national independence and progress. This play, according to Khalil Hawi, "defines Gibran's belief in Syrian nationalism with great clarity, distinguishing it from both Lebanese and Arab nationalism, and showing us that nationalism lived in his mind, even at this late stage, side by side with internationalism."

DEATH AND LEGACY

Dead on april 10th, 1931 from Cirrhosis and Tuberculosis. before his death, he expressed the wish to be burried in his hometown Bcharre in the heart of the Lebanese mountains. Marry HASKELL and his sister Marriana did apply his wish 11 years after  when he was burries in 1932 in the Mar Sarkis Monastry (now it is his own museum).

the words written on his grave are: "I am alive like you, and I am standing beside you. Close your eyes and look around, you will see me in front of you..."

HIS WORKS

IN ARABIC

- Nubthah fi Fan Al-Musiqa (1905)

- Ara'is al-Muruj (Nymphs of the Valley, also translated as Spirit Brides, 1906)

- al-Arwah al-Mutamarrida (Spirits Rebellious, 1908)

- al-Ajniha al-Mutakassira (Broken Wings, 1912)

- Dam'a wa Ibtisama (A Tear and A Smile, 1914)

- al-Mawakib (The Processions, 1919)

- al-‘Awāsif (The Tempests, 1920)

- al-Bada'i' waal-Tara'if (The New and the Marvellous,1923)

IN ENGLISH

- The Madman (1918)

- 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)

- 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 Khalil Gibran and Mary Haskell, and her private journal (1972, edited by Virginia Hilu)

QUOTES

- "A friend who is far away is sometimes much nearer than one who is at hand. Is not the mountain far more awe-inspiring and more clearly visible to one passing through the valley than to those who inhabit the mountain?"

- "An eye for an eye, and the whole world would be blind."

- "And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair."

- "Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need."

- "Generosity is not giving me that which I need more than you do, but it is giving me that which you need more than I do."

- "I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet, strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers."

- "If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. And if they don't, they never were."

- "If you reveal your secrets to the wind, you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees."

- "Love one another, but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls."

- "Rebellion without truth is like spring in a bleak, arid desert."

- "There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward."

- "Trust in dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity."

- "You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give."

- "Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens."