Interview by Glen Kalem and Francesco Medici Henri Zoghaib is a Lebanese poet and writer, born in the maritime city of Jounieh (10 km north of Beirut). He has taught Arabic literature in many local colleges as well as in American universities while living in the USA (1988-1994). He wrote literary articles in Lebanese and Arab newspapers and journals and has several books of poetry and prose to his credit, among them biographies on Lebanese literary authorities such as Elias Abou Shabaki, Saïd Akl, Rahbani brothers, but he devoted a special part of his writings to Kahlil Gibran...
By Francesco Medici and Glen Kalem-Habib On May 4, 1908, Kahlil Gibran told his patroness Mary Elizabeth Haskell a curious story about his time in Beirut (1898-1902), when he was a student at al-Hikmah College and met a girl who lacked the courage to express her feelings to him. Mary, as she used to do, carefully recorded it on her diary: “I will tell you something in my life [he said.] Something that wi...
by Philippe Maryssael, retired translator and terminologist, Arlon, Belgium, April 10, 2021. Jason Leen completing Kahlil Gibran’s Prophet Trilogy With the support and skills of his friend and benefactress Mary Haskell (1873‑1964), Gibran Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931), the world-famous author, poet and artist from Mount Lebanon published his masterpiece The Prophet in New York In September 1923. The Prophet was supposed to be the first installment of a trilogy that Gibran could not complete before he died on 10 April 1931, 90 years ago. He started work on the second installment but decided not to complete it before he published Jesus the Son o...
Introduction by Glen Kalem-Habib and Francesco Medici Transcription of the original Arabic poem by Nadine Najem Translation into English by Naji B. Oueijan Ninety years ago today on the 10th of April 1931, Kahlil Gibran passed away at St Vincent’s Hospital in New York City around 11 pm. His official cause of death was noted as ‘cirrhosis’ of the liver and some traces of ‘tuberculosis’. Aside from his Boston funeral proceeding, Gibran willed...
Mikhail Naimy: Gibran the Man as I Remember Him An Excerpt from His Autobiography Introduced and Annotated by Francesco Medici In 1934, Lebanese poet, novelist, philosopher and literary critic Mikhail Naimy (1889-1988), official member and secretary of al-Rabitah al-Qalamiyya (The Pen Bond, New York 1920-1931), published in Beirut the first biography of Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931), his associate and friend for sixteen years in the United States (he had already dedicated several pages to Gibran’s literature in al-Ghirbal [The Sieve, Cairo, 1923], a coll...
Gibran: 'How and Why I wrote The Prophet' - a rare interview discovered. International Kahlil Gibran scholar and resident contributor to the Kahlil Gibran Collective Mr. Francesco Medici has unearthed a rare interview made of the poet-artist. Published in a small Alabama newspaper, The Birmingham News under the title: Kahlil Gibran, Syrian Poet-Artist, Tells How, Why He Wrote ‘The Prophet’ – The interview sheds an intimate light amoungst other things, into Gibran’s inner world, his thoughts and feelings about writing "The Prophet’ and 'Jesus Son of Man'. The reporter, Gladys Baker 1900-1957 (born in Jacksonville, FL) was a syndicated columnist-novelist and became a feature writer for the Birmingham News during the 1930's where she wrote a weekly pa...
Amongst the multitude of tombs in the City of the Dead in Cairo, there lies buried a lone Indian — a scholar, writer, debonair statesman and a leader of the freedom movement. Who is he? How did he get there?
by Philippe Maryssael, retired translator and terminologist, Arlon, Belgium, December 20, 2020. Kahlil Gibran’s masterpiece published in French for the 30th time… In 1923, Kahlil Gibran’s third book in English was published by Alfred Abraham Knopf in New York, The Prophet: twenty-eight sermons of wisdom with twelve paintings that add an extra dimension to the text. Way back in 1978, when Philippe Maryssael was 16 years old, he read the second Fr...
by Philippe Maryssael, retired translator and terminologist, Arlon, Belgium, December 15, 2020. Oud music inspired by the poetry of Kahlil Gibran Article based on Joseph Tawadros’ biography from his personal website http://josephtawadros.com/, and the free encyclopaedia Wikipedia at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Tawadros: Born October 6, 1983 in Cairo, Egypt, and a resident of Sydney, Australia, since he was 3 years old, Joseph Tawadros wa...
by Philippe Maryssael, retired translator and terminologist, Arlon, Belgium, November 5, 2020. Dust jacket picture provided by Francesco Medici, Italian specialist and translator of Kahlil Gibran. A book of poems by Barbara Young, illustrated with three rare drawings by Kahlil Gibran Barbara Young (1878‑1961), the pen name of Henrietta Boughton, née Breckenridge, was a literary critic with the New York Times in the early 20th century. She became Kahlil Gibran’s personal secretary in 1925 and it was she who carried the agonizing Gibran to the Saint Vincent Hospital in New York on 9 April 1931. The next day, 10 April 1931, Gibran passed away, diagnosed having liver cirrhos...
by Philippe Maryssael, retired translator and terminologist. Arlon, Belgium, October 31, 2020. Kahlil Gibran’s masterpiece, The Prophet, as told through the eyes of a woman February 14, 2020… The text of Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet has been in the public domain for some time now. February 14, 2020, a new version of Gibran’s masterpiece was published in the United States. In 2007 the authoress of this new book, known by the pen name Be Be, also wrote The Be Attitudes, A Catalog of Life & Light.
by Philippe Maryssael, retired translator and terminologist. Arlon, Belgium, October 28, 2020. Kahlil Gibran’s Classic Text with Newly Discovered Writings… On April 1, 2020, while COVID-19 was hitting hard on all of us, a book was published, a book that reproduced Kahlil Gibran’s masterpiece, The Prophet, which was first published in New York by Alfred A. Knopf in September 1923. Yet again, you might say… Yet another edition of Gibran’s The Prophet… Yes and no. Yes, because indeed the book contains the nth + 1 version of The Prophet. And no, because, in addition to the nth + 1 version of The Pro...
by Philippe Maryssael, retired translator and terminologist. Arlon, Belgium, October 13, 2020. A rare book by Barbara Young, illustrated with a drawing by Gibran Barbara Young (1878‑1961), the pen name of Henrietta Boughton, née Breckenridge, was a literary critic with the New York Times in the early 20th century. She became Kahlil Gibran’s personal secretary in 1925 and it was she who carried the agonizing Gibran to the Saint Vincent Hospital in New York on April 9, 1931. The next day, April 10, 1931, Gibran passed away, diagnosed having liver cirrhosis and tuberculosis. Barbara Young is best known for her book This Man from Leb...
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 led by Kahlil Gibran. The other members of the society were Mikhail Naimy, Elia Abu Madi, ...
‘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] These appear to have been the first words spoken by Mary Haskell to Kahlil Gibran in the spring of 1904, during their first encounter at an exhibition of his...
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 to the present day.
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 (Shěn Déhóng), a much-famed and respected novelist, cultural critic and future Minister of Culture of the People’s Republic of China from 1949 to 1965. Between June and September 1923, he published in some literature weeklies his translations of eight prose poems from The Forerunner: “Poet...
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 be made, about these horror killings which occurred during the WWI period. Around the same time, main...
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. Horowitz, Thank you […] for se...
