Post by bran_sinnach on Jan 13, 2007 0:24:02 GMT -5
Kahlil Gibran
1883-1931
Poet, philosopher, and artist, was born in Lebanon, a land that has produced many prophets. The millions of Arabic speaking peoples familiar with his writings in that language consider him the genius of his age. But he was a man whose fame and influence spread far beyond the Near East. His poetry has been translated into more than twenty languages. His drawings and paintings have been exhibited in the great capitals of the world and compared by Auguste Rodin to the work of William Blake. In the US, which he made his home during the last twenty years of his life, he began to write in English. The Prophet and his other books of poetry, illustrated with his mystical drawings, are known and loved by innumerable peoples who find in them an expression of the deepest impulses of man's heart and mind. The book from which these quotes shall be taken, The Prophet, is Gibran's masterpiece, and has become one of the beloved classics of our time. Published in 1923, it has been translated into more than twenty languages, and the American edition alone has sold almost 3,000,000 copies. Gibran considered The Prophet his greatest achievement. He said: "I think I’ve never been without The Prophet since I first conceived the book back in Mount Lebanon. It seems to have been a part of me... I have kept the manuscript four years before I delivered it over to my publisher because I wanted to be sure, I wanted to be very sure, that every word of it was the very best I had to offer." It has been said that if there is a man or woman who can read this book without a quiet acceptance of a great man's philosophy and a singing in the heart as of music born within, that man or woman is indeed dead to life and truth.