And Almitra the seeress said, "Blessed be this day and this place and your spirit that has spoken."
And he answered, Was it I who spoke? Was I not also a listener?
Then he descended the steps of the Temple and all the people followed him. And he reached his ship and stood upon the deck.
And facing the people again, he raised his voice and said:
People of Orphalese, the wind bids me leaves you.
Less hasty am I than the wind, yet I must go.
-- The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran.
Kahlil Gibran was born in 1883 in North Lebanon. He was the first child of his mother from her second marriage, who had been previously widowed with one son named Butros. After Gibran was born, she gave birth to two daughters- Sultana and Marianna. In 1894, Gibran and his siblings migrated to the U.S.A. and started their new lives in Boston.
After reaching America, Gibran started showing great interest in drawing and painting. He was introduced to the esoteric Bostonian artist- photographer Fred Holland Day. He was experimenting with new ideas of photography and Gibran was photographed in many posters by him and some of them were nude photographs.In 1897 Gibran was sent back to Lebanon, where he joined al-Hikma high school in Beirut and learnt Arabic and French languages and literature.
In 1901, he visited Boston and returned to Lebanon within one year. For quite a while he worked as an interpreter of an American family touring Mediterranean countries. In the span of the next one year, he lost his step brother, one of his sisters and his beloved mother. Both the siblings were victims of tuberculosis while his mother died of cancer.
"al-Musiqa" (Music) is his first published work. al-Musiqa was a pamphlet in which he eulogizes Arabic music and its innumerable variations. He published his collection of short-stories "Arais al-Muruj" (Nymphs of the Valley) in 1906, one year after publishing al-Musiqa. From 1911, he started spending most of his time in the New York City and became a permanent resident there in 1912. He published "Dam a wa Ibtisaima" (A Tear and a Smile), a collection of poetic prose pieces, noted for its aphoristic content . He had conducted a few exhibitions of his paintings too during this time.
Gibran was keenly involved in his creative life for most of the time he spent in New York. He published most of his works during this time.
"The Earth Gods" was the last of his works published during his life time.It was a long prose poem consisting of a dialogue between three Earth-Gods on the destiny of man.
On April 10, 1931 Gibran dies in a New York hospital. The New York Sun announced in its obituary- "A Prophet is Dead." The funeral was held in Lebanon where thousands of men and women followed the procession behind the coffin of the prophet. Every year, thousands of visitors tread the narrow path that leads to the convent of Mar Sarkis, where he rests in the shadow of a boulder, very close to the Holy Valley.
His works "The Wanderer", a collection of parables was published in 1932. "The Garden of The Prophet" was published in 1933. "The Complete Arabic Works of Kahlil Gibran", organized and introduced by Mikhail Naimy was published in Beirut, in 1961.
Gibran's poems have been translated to more than 20 langauges and his drawings and sculptures have been exhibited in the great cities around the world. The Prophet and his other books of poetry with his wonderful and mystical illustrations have won the love of readers all over the world.
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