Khalil Gibran was a Lebanese-American writer, poet and artist. He is best known as the author of The Prophet, which was first published in the United States in 1923 and has since become one of the best-selling books of all time, having been translated in more than 100 languages. Gibran held his first art exhibition of his drawings in January 1904 in Boston at Day’s studio.
At 15, Gibran returned to his home country to attend a Maronite school in Beirut, where he displayed an interest in poetry and founded a student magazine. He returned to Boston in 1901 shortly after the death of one of his sisters from tuberculosis; the following year, his brother and mother passed away as well. Gibran in 1912 published the novella al-Ajniha al-mutakassira (Broken Wings). In 1923, Gibran published what became his most famous work, The Prophet. In 1928, he delivered another of his celebrated books, Jesus, the Son of Man, a collection of reflections on Christ from both historic and imaginary people. Gibran eventually became the third-best-selling poet of all time, behind William Shakespeare and Chinese philosopher Lao-tzu.
Your children are not your children, They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself……
Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain?
And a youth said, “Speak to us of Friendship.” Your friend is your needs answered.
I would not exchange the sorrows of my heart For the joys of the multitude. And I would not have the tears that sadness makes To flow from my every part turn into laughter.
And a poet said, ‘Speak to us of Beauty.’ Where shall you seek beauty, and how shall you find her unless she herself be your way and your guide?
The dark wings of night enfolded the city upon which Nature had spread a pure white garment of snow; and men deserted the streets for their houses in search of warmth; while the north wind probed in contemplation of laying waste the gardens.
At his death Gibran was working on The Garden of the Prophet (1933). Gibran died on 10 April 1931 of cirrhosis of the liver.
By Dr. Manorama Lakhe
