Edited by Francesco Medici© Francesco Medici - all rights reserved 2020 The first Arabic-language literary circle in North America, known as al-Rābiṭah al-Qalamiyyah, or simply Arrabitah (literally in English, “The Pen Bond,” or “The Pen League,” or “The Association of the Pen,”), was founded or re-formed (its first official formation was due to Nasib Aridah and Abd al-Masih Haddad and dates back 1916) on 28 April 1920 by a group of Arab immigrant writers in New York le...

 ‘What have you to do with me? I am an Italian!’ by Francesco Medici © Francesco Medici - all rights reserved 2020  “Forgive me my curiosity – what country do you hail from?  You look to me like a Frenchman or an Italian.”[1]

by Francesco Medici - Translated into English by Nadine Najem© Francesco Medici & Nadine Najem - all rights reserved 2020 One day, during his youth, the future great French writer Marcel Proust (1871-1922) was asked by his friend Antoinette Faure a series of questions in English language – in fact they were in vogue among the British Victorian families, as a form of parlor games, some questionnaires designed to discover the personal tastes and aspirations of those who answered them. Proust’s answers were published only in 1924, two years after his death. This was the origin of the famous “Proust Questionnaire”, whose success has come down...

by Charles Malouf Samaha Copyright © 2020 by Charles Malouf Samaha. All rights reserved. Faris Saleem Malouf (1892-1958) emigrated from Lebanon to the United States in 1907. Like many Lebanese immigrants, he started peddling, but

Xianzhi: Gibran’s The Prophet in Chinese (1931) by Francesco Medici© Copyright Francesco Medici All Rights Reserved 2020 The first to translate a selection of Gibran’s works into Chinese was Mao Dun (Máo Dùn, 1896-1981), known by the pen name of Shen Dehong

Kahlil Gibran and the Armenians by Francesco Medici - Translated into English and Arabic by Nadine Najem.  © Francesco Medici - all rights reserved 2020 Introduction by: Glen Kalem-Habib The 24th of April (today) in 1916 for many Armenians around the world commemorate the tragic events of what is now recognized as the Armenian Genocide (or Holocaust). The atrocities committed by the Turkish-Ottoman forces between 1914 and 1923 are estimated to have killed 1.5 million Armenians, in what is widely accepted as the “first modern day genocide”. Second only to the Holocaust, many studies have been made and continue to b...

Der Novi: Gibran’s The Prophet in Yiddish (1929) by Francesco Medici © Copyright Francesco Medici All Rights Reserved 2020 On May 4, 2017, Swann Galleries, a well-known New York auction house specializing in rare and antiquarian books, sold for $13,000 a two-page autograph letter by Kahlil Gibran to a Mr. Horowitz (Sale 2446, Lot 360). In his letter, the poet praises Horowitz’s essay introducing The Prophet and suggests that the latter tell Knopf of his translation of the book. These are the (almost complete) contents of the letter: Boston, 10 July 1928 My dear Mr. Horowit...

The Prophet’s first Dutch translation (The Hague, 1927) by Francesco Medici © Copyright Francesco Medici All Rights Reserved 2020  

The Prophet’s Earliest European Translations: German (1925) and French (1926) by Francesco Medici © Copyright Francesco Medici All Rights Reserved 2020 Baron Georg-Eduard Freiherr von Stietencron (Crissier, Switzerland, 1888-Stuttgart, Germany, 1974), from an ancient noble family of Swedish origins, was an author, translator, inventor and film merchant. His translation of The Prophet from the original English into German was probably the first-ever to be published. It was released in 1925 in Munich, Germany, with the title Der Prophet, in 800 numbered pieces printed on special paper.

"Portrait of Ameen Rihani through his handwriting" by Mary Haskell Introduction: Glen Kalem-Habib Researcher: Francesco Medici  Transcriptions: Philippe Marysael  Graphology by definition is summed up as "the analysis of the physical characteristics and patterns of handwriting claiming to be able to identify the writer, indicating the psychological state at the time of writing, or evaluating personality characteristics" It is not quite known when Mary Elizabeth Haskell (1873-1964) developed a strong interest in the pseudoscience of graphology, but upon the recent discovery of a French article translated by Fouad Sader for the Lebanese-French Magazine "La R...

Le Sable et l'Écume : Recueil d'Aphorismes By Philippe Maryssael  In 1926, the fourth book that Kahlil Gibran wrote in English was published in New York: Sand and Foam (A Book of Aphorisms). It contains 322 short aphorisms that were compiled with the help of Barbara Young, Gibran's secretary between 1925 and 1931. They are ideas that Gibran jotted down in his notebook or on odd pieces of paper in English or in Arabic. Gibran and his benefactress Mary Haskell went through the collection and decided they were wo...

Salim Sarkis: Gibran’s Matchmaker Friend by Bob Goodhouse © all rights reserved 2020    Salim S. Sarkis (1867-1926), born in Beirut, lived at 76 Broad St in the Syrian New York Colony from 1899-1904, and published the Al Musheer (“The Counselor”) weekly newspaper at 38 Broad St. Like many Syrian-Lebanese of the time, he left Beirut for Egypt, and ultimately the United States. Unlike many of his compatriots, he decided to return to Egypt after a few years in America.Al Musheer had been a popular Egyptian weekly in Cairo from 1894...

By Francesco Medici and Glen Kalem-Habib  © all rights reserved 2020 The Kahlil Gibran Collective has revealed the discovery of an unpublished letter of Kahlil Gibran to an unknown recipient, talking about his newfound appreciation for Philology.   Though I am not a linguist, philology has been, and is now, one of the most interesting subjects to me.  Medici and Kalem-Habib's research was unable to place a date to the letter,  nor who its recipient was. Looking at content and subject matter, the researchers estimate it was written in-between 1925-1930. Gibran, "a man of (many) letters"  took so much pride and...

By The Kahlil Gibran Collective, all rights reserved © The Kahlil Gibran Collective 2020 In April 2017, during the third international conference on Kahlil Gibran held at the Lebanese American University in Beirut, Kahlil Gibran scholars Francesco Medici and Glen Kalem-Habib shared their findings on the official number of first edition language translations of The Prophet. The number they registered in the year-long study was 104 titles. This study has been an ongoing one, and sure...

by Philippe Maryssael, retired translator and terminologist. Arlon, Belgium, 2 November 2019. Abstract “And you, vast sea, sleeping mother”: a short, six-word sentence at the top of page 10 of the first edition of Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet, published in 1923, was later changed to “And you, vast sea, sleepless mother.” The aim of this paper is to try and provide answers to the following questions: when did the change occur?, why did Kahlil Gibran ask his publisher, Alfred Knopf, to change his text?, and who could have influenced Gibran to change it? Also ...

Research on the Spread and Influence of Gibran in China The Contrast between Translation and Research and its Reflection By Lijuan Gan, Professor, Tianjin Normal University Xuehua Miao, Associate Professor, Harbin Normal University Wei Liang, Instructor, Hunan-First Normal University Edited by Glen Kalem-Habib In November 2013, I had the pleasure of being invited to attend a three-day

By Todd Fine  Originally Published on HuffPost 06/15/2017 The field of Arab American studies is being revolutionized by a movement of independent scholars that is leveraging the new accessibility of genealogical information and newspapers in digital databases. Important topics like the history of the “Syrian quarter” in Lower Manhattan and the biographies of key Arab American political and literary figures are being finally written by scholars like Linda Jacobs, Jean Gibran, Charles Malouf Samaha, F...

Mercedes de Acosta: “Gibran Was a Great Spiritual Teacher” edited by Francesco Medici and Glen Kalem-Habib Mercedes de Acosta (1892-1968) was an American poet, playwright, and novelist. She was professionally unsuccessful but is known for her many lesbian relationships with famous Broadway and Hollywood personalities and numerous friendships with prominent artists of the period.

edited by Francesco Medici and Glen Kalem Kahlil Gibran tried out his early poetry on Josephine Peabody (1874-1922), a fine American poet and dramatist, and instructor in English at Wellesley College from 1901 to 1903. He attempted to explain what he was up to in his Arabic poems to his friend, and took with her his first tottering steps in English composition. One of those immature prose poems remains, dating probably from 1904, among Josephine’s papers in Harvard University Library:

by Francesco Medici © Copyright Francesco Medici All Rights Reserved 2019 The Arab-American literary monthly review Al-Funoon (“The Arts”) began publication in April 1913 in New York City by editor and publisher Nasib Aridah,[1] already founder there in 1912 of the “Al-Atlantic Publishing Co.” After 29 issues it ceased publication in August 1918 due to several factors, such as paper supply, lack of subscription payment, manpower availability and World War I.[2]

Gibran’s Letters to Antony Bashir by Francesco Medici © Copyright Francesco Medici All Rights Reserved 2019 As a young clergyman, the Lebanese-born Antony (Antonious) Bashir (1898-1966), future Orthodox Archbishop of New York and Metropolitan of All North American archdiocese of the Church of Antioch from 1936 to 1966, was adept at translating from English into Arabic. It was Gibran who chose to entrust Bashir with the Arabic translation of all his English works published by Knopf in New York: The Madman (1918), The Forerunner (1920), The Prophet (1923), Sand and Foam (1926), Jesus, ...

by Tania June Sammons © Copyright Tania June Sammons All Rights Reserved 2019 In October 1923, educator, philanthropist, and traveler Mary Haskell prophesized the success of The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran after receiving a copy of the book she helped bring to fruition. This book will be held as one of the treasures of English literature. And in our darkness we will open it to find ourselves again and the heaven and earth within ourselves. Generations will not exhaust it, but instead, generation after generation will find in the book what they would fain be—and it will be better loved as we grow riper and riper. Nearly one h...

by Joseph Nahas edited by Francesco Medici and Glen Kalem One day, instead of eating our lunch at the restaurant, Gibran and I prepared our own sandwiches and walked over to Battery Park. There we saw a blind man sitting on a bench, running his fingers over a white page covered with dots protruding through embossing. The man’s lips moved as if he were whispering to himself, as his fingers moved over the white sheet. As we passed by the blind man, Gibran remarked, “Let’s sit on the adjoining bench, eat our sandwiches quietly while watching this man with ‘seeing fingers.’” We sat down eating, while our eyes were fixed on the blind man, watching the expressions on his face, sm...

by Francesco Medici © Copyright Francesco Medici All Rights Reserved 2019  On the night of 11 November 1904, a devastating fire completely gutted the Harcourt Studios, located on 23 Irvington Street, Boston. The building was shared by many of the city’s most notable artists, including Edmund C. Tarbell (1862-1938), Frank W. Benson (1862-1951), William P. Burpee (1846-1940), Joseph DeCamp (1858-1923), William Macgregor Paxton (1869-1941) and Fred Holland Day (1864-1933). [1] 

NEWS: Kahlil Gibran’s, The Prophet has been published by the Folio Society with colour illustrations of his original drawings for the first time. The Prophet entered the public domain at the beginning of this year fostering in a new era of publications that are keeping the books remarkable legacy alive. The Arts and Collectables International website has captured its re-birth in this article: https://www.artsandcollections.com/kahlil-gibrans-best-seller-the-prophet-issued-in-folio-society-illustrated-edition/    https://www.foliosociety.com/au/the-prophet.html 

Gibran and Julia Ellsworth Ford: Two Rare Photographs  by Francesco Medici © Copyright Francesco Medici All Rights Reserved 2019 “Mrs. Ford is one of the powerful women of New York […]. Last Sunday she took me in her car to her great country house in Rye, N.Y.” wrote Gibran to Mary Haskell in 1913. And again, one year after: “We had a dinner with the Fords. I enjoyed the evening very much – such rare people.”[1]

Gibran on His Excommunication by Joseph Nahas edited by Francesco Medici and Glen Kalem It was one evening when I happened to be at the office of His Eminence Archbishop Aftimios Ofiesh, titular head of the Russian Orthodox Catholic Church in North America and its islands, discussing an article written by me on the separation of that church from the Antioch Patriarchate with headquarters at Damascus, Syria. A coterie of writers – Gibran, Naseeb Arida, Abdul-Maseeh Haddad, Nadra Haddad (Abdul-Maseeh’s elder brother), Mikhail Takla, and Mikhail Naimy – arrived. Naseeb Arida was the publisher of an Arabic language magazine, Al-Akhlak, “The Character”; Abdul-Maseeh Haddad was the publisher of an Arabic ...

by Francesco Medici Naoum Antoun Mokarzel (Freike, 1864-Paris, 1932) was a Lebanese political activist, influential intellectual and publisher, who immigrated to the United States where he established ‘Al-Hoda’ (The Guidance, 1898-1971), the largest Arabic daily in North America.

 by Francesco Medici © Copyright Francesco Medici All Rights Reserved 2019  Indeed, as of today, Gibran’s literary works both in Arabic and English have all but been published, apart from maybe some fragments and other minor contributions. To find unpublished material we have to look above all at his many letters.[1] For example, his extensive correspondence with Mary Haskell Minis (between 1904 and the time of his death in 1931) and her private journal and diaries about him are still waiting to be published in their entirety. Said documents are part of the Minis Family Papers, 1739-1948, held in the Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel ...

by Glen Kalem

NEWS: Contributing writers for the Kahlil Gibran Collective, Francesco Medici and Glen Kalem have had their study on the translations of 'The Prophet' inspire an academic paper prepared by Professor Maya El-Hajj. We are proud to announce it has been published in 'Academy Publication' - Theory and Practice in Language Studies ISSN 1799-2591 Volume 9, Number 4, April 2019 under the title of  "Aporias in Literary Translation: A Case Study of The Proph...

By Glen Kalem  " The Prophet …It is very inspiring. It is more or less a pattern for everyday living."  Marilyn Monroe Robert F. Saltzer - The New York Journal-America1  Copyright © Glen Kalem all rights reserved 2019  Marilyn Monroe was a self-educated literate, and it may come as a surprise to many that she was like most self-educated people, (including myself) an avid ...

by Francesco Medici Copyright © Francesco Medici all rights reserved 2019  Between 1921 and 1922 Felix Faris (1882-1939), a prominent Lebanese activist, journalist, writer, poet and translator, spent seven months in the United States. In New York he met the members of Arrabitah (The Pen Bond) and became a close friend of Gibran, who considered him a “great literary brother.”1

Le Fol : Ses Paraboles et Poèmes By Philippe Maryssael  A century ago, in October 1918, the very first book that Khalil Gibran wrote in English was published in New York: The Madman. It is an anthology of thirty-five texts of variable lengths – parables and poems – in which he tries, at the end of the Great War, to give significance and morality to life. Composed of texts that Gibran originally wrote in Arabic and translated in English, and also of texts that he wrote directly in E...

by Joseph Nahas edited by Francesco Medici and Glen Kalem Copyright © Francesco Medici and Glen Kalem all rights reserved 2019  I first met Gibran Khalil Gibran at the office of an Arabic language newspaper, Al-Mohajer (“The Emigrant”), where I was employed as an assistant to Ameen Guraieb, publisher of the paper, and to his brother, Khalil.

 by Francesco Medici Copyright © Franceso Medici all rights reserved 2019  Translations from the Original Spanish into English by Hilda de Windt-Ayoubi A few months before dying, Kahlil Gibran received in his New York studio two lady admirers. One of the women was an old

by Joseph Nahas Edited By Francesco Medici and Glen Kalem  Copyright © kahlilgibran.com all rights reserved 2019  On numerous evenings, Gibran and I sat on a bench in Battery Park listening to musical renditions by one of New York’s civic clubs’ bands, and, with newspapers rolled up in our hands (when punk sticks were not available), we swatted, or deflected the swarming, dive-bombing mosquitoes.

The Gibran Chair is holding a Symposium on Wedesday the 27th of March titled: Reshaping the Landscapes of Arab Thought: The Legacies of Kahlil Gibran, Ameen Rihani, and Mikhail Naimy. If you wish to attend please RSVP Here:         ...

by Francesco Medici Copyright © Francesco Medici and kahlilgibran.com all rights reserved 2019  * This article is based on an excerpt from the paper "Tracing Gibran’s Footsteps: Unpublished and Rare Material", in "Gibran in the 21th Century: Lebanon’s Message to the World", edited by H. Zoghaib and M. Rihani, Beirut: Center for Lebanese Heritage, LAU, 2018, pp. 93-145.

WHEN THE ITALIAN MONKS SOLD THE MONASTERY OF MAR SARKIS Copyright © 2019, by Francesco Medici and Charles M. Samaha, all rights reserved. by Francesco Medici and Charles Malouf Samaha In his later years, Kahlil Gibran repeatedly expressed his will to return to Lebanon and settle in his desired final resting-place, Mar Sarkis (Saint Sergius). This ancient monastery-hermitage overlooks the Kadisha Valley where he had spent his childhood, and is now known as the Gibran Museum. He once confessed to his intimate friend...

 Story by Glen Kalem.  Copyright © Glen Kalem and kahlilgibran.com all rights reserved 2019  January 1st 2019.  After 95 years and a 188 consecutive print runs - the longest in publishing history, Kahlil Gibran's much-loved and admired book The Prophet enters the public domain today.  

The Kahlil Gibran Collective attended the opening of Kahlil Gibran: The Garden of the Prophet celebrating the life and work of literary genius Kahlil Gibran.  The moving space created by the team at Immigration Museum Victoria set out to reflect Gibran’s world, by gaining insight into his key relationships and rediscover the power and relevance of his work today. 50 original paintings and drawings plus some of Gibran's New York studio furniture make up the current exhibition on loan from the Gibran Museum of Lebanon.  Kahlil Gibran: The Garden of the Prophet is proudly presented by the Bank of Sydney, supported by the Gibran National Committee, and has ...

By Francesco Medici Siegfried Loraine Sassoon (1886-1967), well known as a highly decorated English soldier and writer, was one of the leading poets of the First World War. His verse, that described the horrors of the trenches and satirized the patriotic spirit, greatly influenced Wilfred Owen (1893-1918), who was the most famous poet-soldier of English literature and to whom Sassoon was mentor.  On 28 January 1920, Sassoon arrived in New York for a lecture tour and Gibran, eager to draw him for his “Temple of Art,” got an appointment with him on 10 Feburary. On that cold and snowy Tuesday, the two lunched together and Sassoon accepted to sit for a portrait. After coming back to the S...

PRESS RELEASE: October 26, 2018.  Museums Victoria is partnering with the Gibran National Committee and the Gibran Museum in Lebanon to present an exhibition of the artworks and manuscripts of Kahlil Gibran. Kahlil Gibran’s seminal book, The Prophet, has been translated into 100 languages and his poetry and philosophy are much loved around the world. Born in 1883 in Bsharri, Lebanon, Gibran migrated to America with his mother and three siblings in 1895. From his early years he was passionate about creating art through painting and writing and went on to study art in Boston, where he was inspired ...

By: Warren David, President, Arab America Wedesday 17 October 2018   With all the media reports this past week regarding Jamal Khashoggi, I can’t help but reflect on my relationship with him as a colleague in the media and a man of principle and integrity.... ...Jamal looked me in the eye and seriously asked: “Did you know the impact Kahlil Gibran had at the turn of the last century on the literary movement in the Arab world?”    Read full article here...  https://www.arabamerica.com/was-jamal-khashoggi-inspired-by-kahlil-gibran/&nb...

By Francesco Medici Copyright © Francesco Medici and kahlilgibran.com all rights reserved 2019  * This article is based on an excerpt from the paper  Tracing Gibran’s Footsteps: Unpublished and Rare Material, in Gibran in the 21th Century: Lebanon's Message to the World, edited by H. Zoghaib and M. Rihani, Beirut: Center for Lebanese Heritage, LAU, 2018, pp. 93-145.  

   ON THE THIRD MOST POPULARPOET OF ALL TIME By Philip Meters  "A few years ago, in a review of Gibran biographies in The New Yorker, Joan Acocella notes that Gibran’s publishing numbers for his ubiquitous Th...

Study Update: Four new translations of The Prophet found.                                   Since the release of their first study which accounted for 104 language translations of Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet, researchers Kalem and Medici have added an additional four to "the list" revising the total number to 108. The new languages are as follows:  Cebuan: Origins Philippines Basque: Origins France/Spain Berber: Origins North Africa Bokmål: Norwegian 

By Arab News Denise Marray LONDON: What is it about the work of the famed Lebanese poet, writer and artist Kahlil Gibran that touches the hearts of so many people across the world today, decades on from his death in 1931? An exhibition of art inspired by his writings held this month at Sotheby’s in London provided an opportunity to consider that question “Kahlil Gibran: A Guide for our Times” was organized by the peace building movement, Caravan, and co-curated by Janet Rady and Marion Fromlet Baecker. It featured work by 38 artists from across the Middle East. The vision for the exhibition grew out of a recent book on Gibran titled “In Search of a Prophet: A Spiritual Journey with Kahl...

New Translation Found: Cebuan (Philippines) Following on from their global study (the first of its kind) on the official number of first edition translations of Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet;Research historians Francesco Medici and Glen Kalem have added yet another first-edition language translation (Cebuan, of the Philippines) to the official list, making the total number of translations now 105.The Cebuano or Cebuan language, also often colloquially referred to by most of its speakers simply as Bisaya, is an Austronesian language spoken in the Philippines by about 21 million people in Central Visayas, western parts of ...

This week and next sees separate events in London celebrating the life and work of one of Lebanon’s most famous sons, Kahlil Gibran, an artist and author whose enduring reputation rests on his most famous work, The Prophet

Exibition Preview :    Kahlil Gibran: A Universal Philosophy Timel...

THIS SUMMER... put a little "Kahlil Gibran" in your day!Plan to attend CARAVAN ART's exhibition at Sotheby's in London is on between August 6-10 featuring 38 premier Middle Eastern artists inspired by the message of peace and harmony found in Kahlil Gibran's poetry, writings and art, celebrating the authors 95th anniversary year of his best-selling book "The Prophet". All the artwork will be for sale with proceeds going to charity for peacebuilding between the Middle East and West. FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.

A New Musical based on KAHLIL GIBRAN'S "BROKEN WINGS" The West End Premiere from 1st - 4th August 2018 @ Theatre Royal Haymarket. ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ "The songs are hauntingly beautiful, powerful, moving and superbly performed" by Nick Wakeham from the MusicalTheatreReview.com  ABOUT An autobiographical account of Gibran's first love, Broken Wings is a musical adaptatio...

The Chinese Translation of Kahlil Gibran: His Life and World (China Social Science Publishing House, 2016)   The Chinese translation of Kahlil Gibran’s English biography Kahlil Gibran;His Life and World was published by China Social Science Publishing House in July, 2016.   The translator Dr. Zheng Ma is a researcher of Kahlil Gibran. In 2006, she completed  “The Literary Study of Kahlil Gibran in the Western Context” which was the first doctoral thesis on Kahlil Gibran in China and challenged the dominant notion of China’s academia and readers that “Kahlil Gibran is an ...

COMING SOON! “Love is a quenchless thirst”  The Kahlil Gibran International Speakers Tour COMING SOON! Introduction:  Poet and painter Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931), best known for his most prized work “The Prophet,” has left an undeniable legacy that places him in the upper echelons of world literature, a champion of human rights, and a forerunner of peace and reconciliation.     A painter who became a poet, his short life was often driven by a “quenchless thirst” to create artistic expression as a mouthpiece to foray subjects that highlighted the cries of humanity, the oneness in being, and the understanding of our collective journey as not separate, but unified by the path of the spirit.     Reading between the lines of...

“The World Day of Social Justice: Celebrating Equality and Justice in the Work of Gibran Khalil Gibran” 20 February 2018, UN-House, Beirut  Roula Moawad, Alexandre Najjar; Francesco Medici; Henri Zgheib; Tarek Chidiac; Centre stage at World Day of Social Justice ESCWA Beirut Feb 2018 February 20th marks “World Day of Social Justice”, and the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) held a special event in Be...

Celebrating Equality and Justice in the Work of Gibran Khalil Gibran” 20 February 2018, UN-House, Beirut

“The World Day of Social Justice: Celebrating Equality and Justice in the Work of Gibran Khalil Gibran” 20 February 2018, UN-House, Beirut  Roula Moawad, Alexandre Najjar; Francesco Medici; Henri Zgheib; Tarek Chidiac; Centre stage at World Day of Social Justice ESCWA Beirut Feb 2018 February 20th marks “World Day of Social Justice”, and the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) held a special event in Be...

At Table with Kahlil Gibran   by Francesco Medici   Contrary to popular belief, Kahlil Gibran, Lebanese artist, poet and philosopher, best known the world over as author of The Prophet, did not lead a properly ascetic life. He had a sober life-style, to be sure, and used to spend most of his time writing, painting and drawing by himself in his studio.

By Hilda de Windt-Ayoubi Translating The Prophet started in an almost mystical way. Someone I know, asked me 6 years ago, if I knew Kahlil Gibran. Despite the fact that I wrote him that I did not, he kept mentioning Kahlil’s name once in a while. He wrote me that some aspects of my poems remembered him of this writer.  One day he told me that Kahlil, like my parents, hailed from Lebanon. It was then that I could not close my heart any more. So I went in google-search of this Lebanese writer. When I saw his oeuvre I was really startled. In 2011 my son Faried, bought me The Prophet as a birthday present. I was really touched by this wonderful book. A few months later, I got the second present, a translation into Dutch, De Profeet. While reading...

The Prophet of War by Glen Kalem Picture this; you’re a combat soldier in WWII a few thousand miles away from home, hunched down in a murky bunker waiting for your orders to leap out onto the frontline of Normandy. Moreover, you’re the co-pilot flying a United States aircraft loaded with an atomic bomb en route to the Japanese city of Hiroshima… or further still, you’re one of the sixty-eight American servicewomen captured as a POW in the Philippines. Packed in your uniform sits an oblong-shaped paperback – the front cover reads “Armed Services Edition” Next to it, a distinguished catchphrase “This is the complete book – not a digest”; in between ...

Francesco Medici is a well accomplished scholar and translator of the works of Kahlil Gibran. A native of Bari, Italy he has translated many of Gibran’s work including the plays, “Lazarus and his beloved” and “The Blind Man” and not to mention the critically acclaimed “The Prophet” in Italian. Francesco is also a research assistant on the film Kahlil Gibran The Reluctant Visionary who has contributed immensely items of research and priceless articles towards the film’s story and treatment. He has a couple of new books out in Italian that are well worth looking into. The first book is titled: “Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet and the Child”

Writer/curator Tania Sammons will teach an eight-week course exploring how Mary Haskell Minis, The Prophet’s “muse,” transcended her southern roots, cultivated New England lifestyle, and gender limitations to influence world history. As patron, educator, and traveler Mary Haskell Minis engaged the lofty goal “to make or mar the cosmos” through financial and editorial support of artist-writer Kahlil Gibran whose work “The Prophet” became one of the most influential texts of the twentieth century. Using Mary Haskell Minis as our muse, this course will survey major American history events from the Civil War to the Civil Rights Movement, including Reconstruction, women’s rights, and immigration, as well as the social history of travel, philanthropy, and education. The course...

Republished  from Huffington Post (Religion) Article By Layli Miron Bahá’í grad student Recently, my husband and I sat spellbound by The Prophet, a gorgeous film adaptation of the 1923 book of poems by Kahlil Gibran. In the film, the prophetic writer and artist, Almustafa (aka Mustafa), is a prisoner of an oppressive government, confined on a Mediterranean island called Orphalese. While the government is not named, various clues point to the Ottoman Empire. The only crime Almustafa has committed is using his faculty for words to...

NEWS The College of Behavioral and Social Sciences at the University of Maryland has appointed May Rihani as the director of the George and Lisa Zakhem Kahlil Gibran Chair for Values and Peace.

A Publisher Is Known By the Company He Keeps Reaps.  by Glen Kalem  “[B]ut it was Blanche’s peculiar astuteness that led to the 1923 publication of Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet, whose modest initial sales would metastasize 40 years later, in the woo-woo ’60s, helping to lift Knopf into the commercial big-time” A new biography on Blanche Knop...

  A New Book by Francesco Medici brings into focus an anthology of the Pen Bond.  New York, April 28th 1920 in Kahlil Gibran’s studio a dozen of Syrian-Lebanese writers who emigrated to the United States founded officially a political literary circle known as the 

The Pictorial Universe of Kahlil Gibran by Eva María Ayala Canseco The Bohemian Club of Boston When Gibran Kahlil Gibran and his family arrived in the United States from Lebanon, they e...

Gibran gets a Crater named after him on planet Mercury.   July 2009 ~ The International Astronomical Union (IAU) names 16 impact craters on Mercury. The newly named craters were imaged during the mission’s first two flybys of Mercury in January and October last year. Naming the craters helps to identify and improve communication among those studying the planet’s geology says; MESSENGER Participating Scientist Dave Blewett, of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, in Laurel, Md. The IAU has been the overseers of planetary and satellite nomenclature since its inception in 1919. In keeping ...

by Glen Kalem May 21, 2014 ~ at NAAM The National Anthropological – Archaeological Museum in Pietermaai Curaçao While most of the international (Gibran) focus this past week has been about the pre-launch of Salma Hayek’s inspired animation of The Prophet  held at the illustrious Cannes Film Festival in France, a small island in the Caribbean – probably internationally-known by its citrus-infused 

What do Elvis Presley, the richest man in the world, and Guantanamo Bay prisons all have in common? They all read and admired the work of Kahlil Gibran. On the 14th and 15th of May 2014, via an invitation from the Lebanese American University of Lebanon and sponsored by the Departments of Social Sciences, Humanities, and Communication Arts, Mr. Glen Kalem, international Kahlil Gibran researcher and historian, presented a lecture to faculty and students highlighting 16 years of research unearthing the “Global Gibran and His Readership.” The lecture focused on who has read 

A passionate Salma Hayek was at the Cannes Film Festival to present a work-in-progress screening of The Prophet, based on Kahlil Gibran’s philosophical novel. Turning this 1923 best-seller into an animated feature was always going to be a challenge, but casting some of the best in the business gave her the confidence to meet such a feat. This powerhouse list has Hayek producing along side  Clark Peterson, Jose Tamez and Ron Senkowski. Head director Roger Allers was chosen to lead the helm of A-list animators from across the globe, including the likes of Tomm Moore, Joan C. Gratz, Joann Sfar, Bill Plympton, Paul and Gaetan Brizzi, Michal Socha, Nina Paley

Participant Media and the Doha Film Institute’s animated adaption of Kahlil Gibran’s book “The Prophet” will premiere at Cannes 2014. This animated feature film brings together many celebrated animators from around the globe, with each one capturing a chapter in “The Prophet” with their own signature style.

The Essential Rihani, a unique volume containing some of the most important works of Ameen Rihani as edited by Suheil Bushrui and May Rihani and published by The George and Lisa Zakhem Kahlil Gibran Chair for Values and Peace was released in May 2014. Summary: “Ameen Rihani was a Lebanese-American essayist, novelist, philosopher, and poet who believed passionately in the oneness of the world’s religions and the brotherhood of all nations. He was a formidable intellectual force in shaping and revitalizing the modern Arab intellectual renaissance, and has contributed significantly to the enlightened views that remain an important legacy for Lebanon, the Arab world, and for the world at...

Gibran Khalil Gibran, who became known as Kahlil Gibran, was born in the far north of Lebanon on 6 January 1883. The village of his birth, Bisharri, is perched on a small plateau at the edge of one of the cliffs of Wadi Qadisha, known as the sacred valley. Towering above is Mount Lebanon.   P1020009 from Elucidate Pictures on Vimeo....

A new book by Irish philosopher and poet Richard McSweeney examining the beloved Lebanese writer and poet Kahlil Gibran was released in January 2014. ‘Bradawn Yeats – A Khalil Gibran Tribute to W.B. Yeats’ serves as an enlightening resource that shows Gibran’s appreciation for one of the foremost literary figures. About Richard McSweeney A self-originating lyrical philosopher of Éire (Ireland), McSweeney is happily married and has a son and a daughter. He lived in the Republic of Korea for thirteen years, in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for three, and a further three in the United Arab Emirates. Since 2001, he has been living and writing back home in Ireland. McSweeney holds a BA in Korean Language & Literature, and an MA in Classical...

Media Release Tuesday, 4 February 14 The George and Lisa Zakhem Kahlil Gibran Chair for Values and Peace at the University of Maryland, and the International Association for the Study of the Life and Works of Kahlil Gibran have selected Ms. Tania Sammons to receive the 2014 Kahlil Gibran International Award for the outstanding services she has rendered in fostering the Kahlil Gibran and Mary Haskell heritage, superbly represented in the exclusive collection of artworks at the Telfair Museums in Savannah, Georgia.

On November 24, 2013, as part of their annual Middle Eastern Literature conference, the Peking University celebrated the 130th anniversary of Kahlil Gibran by bringing together academics from across China. Mr. Glen Kalem, an executive member of the newly-founded Kahlil Gibran Global Forum, also made the journey from Sydney, Australia, to be part of this celebrated event. Mr. Kalem’s visit marks the first-ever to China by any Western scholar of Gibran. His aim was to bridge the cultural and academic gap that has been in place since the earliest of Gibran’s translations in the 1920s, whilst also promoting a healthy and on-going dialogue between Gibran scholars of China and the West, where most of the study and research has been the focus over the last 90 year...

RARE PHOTOGRAPH OF KAHLIL GIBRAN FOUND Francesco Medici, an international Gibran scholar and research producer for The Documentary film Kahlil Gibran The Reluctant Visionary has unearthed a rare photograph of Gibran lost in a private collection, held at the National Museum of American History. This photograph ‘Silver gelatin on paper 1 item, 5.8″ x 9.6″ may have eluded scholars and researchers due to the incorrect spelling of Gibran’s surname. “Giran” The Craft Studios photo taken in October 1924 captures an event hosted by The Progressive Syrian American Club; the evening was held to honor Gibran for his community and literary work. Me...

MEDIA RELEASE  April 3rd 2014 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE  By Kahlil Gibran International Forum and News Written by Glen Kalem Contact: info@gibranfilm.com 

Fantastic Blog by Emily Jane O’Dell ~ Writer & Assistant Professor of History & Archaeology at the American University of Beirut Snippet: 

“a seed hidden in the heart of an apple is an orchid invisible” We’re up and running. Welcome to gibrankahlilgibran.net blog site. The worlds first independently run and dedicated website bringing you global news and events concerning the late poet and artist Kahlil Gibran. This site is a work in development, so please make sure to visit time and again for continuous updates and don’t forget to Like our Facebook Site. We’re also open to sugges...