Kahlil Gibran

A comprehensive illustrated biography of Kahlil Gibran, Lebanese-American artist, poet and author of the best-selling inspirational fiction The Prophet . Kahlil Gibran was a Lebanese-born artist, poet, writer and polymath who emigrated to America as a young man in the 1890s, where he became a successful artist and prose poet. His book The Prophet (1923), a series of twenty-six philosophical essays written in poetic English prose became a world-wide bestseller after a sluggish start, selling 40 million copies, and becoming a particular favourite of the 1960s counterculture. As a writer, Gibran encouraged a renaissance in Arab literature; as an artist he painted hundreds of canvases including portraits of artistic celebrities. Raised a Maronite Catholic, his spirituality thought embraces elements of other traditions including Sufi mysticism and the Baha'i faith.