Kahlil Gibran: Man and Poet : A New Biography

by Suheil Bushrui, Joseph Jenkins

Traces the life of the author and mystic with an analysis of his English and Arabic writings and a study of previously unresearched sources

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, Classics

372 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Suheil Bushrui is the foremost translator and interpreter of Anglo-Irish literature in the Arab world, and has published critical studies in Arabic and English on W. B. Yeats, John Millington Synge, James Joyce and Samuel Beckett. He was the first Arab national to be appointed to the Chair of English and Anglo-Irish Literature at the American University of Beirut, and has also served as Chairman of the International Association for the Study of Anglo-Irish Literature (ISAIL). He is currently the Baha'i Chair for World Peace in the Center for International Development and Conflict Management (CIDCM) at the University of Maryland.

Reviews

[PacaLipstick Gramma · Rating 5 out of 5]

I discovered the writings of Kahlil Gibran about 30 years ago. My favorite is The Prophet. His writing is thought provoking, moving, and insightful.

It was a pleasure to read such an in depth book about his life. The author researched his subject very well. Gibran was not just an author of magnificent books, but so much more.

If you are interested in the life of Kahlil Gibran, I highly recommend this book.

[Ahsan Butt · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have translated this book from English into Urdu for Nigarshat Publishers, Lahore, Pakistan. The title of Urdu translation is Khaleel Jibran خلیل جبران.

[Phil Doherty · Rating 5 out of 5]

As with many people, I fell in love with writings of Kahlil Gibran via his masterpiece "The Prophet".
After reading several other of his books I was determined to find out about the man who had so inflenced my daily thinking.
I was fortunate at the time that this book by Suheil Bushrui and Joe Jenkins had just been re released and I devoured it day and night until I felt that I new the genius that is Kahlil Gibran a little better. It is a book that I will keep returning to, because his struggle is inspirational and his prose and poetry take me to amazing places where I can see clearly and feel at one with the world.

[Joanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was interesting to find out that Kahlil's name was changed from the original Gibran Kahlil at Ellis Island, of course. It was also interesting to find out the he was foremost a painter and secondarily a poet. His was a wanderer who lived in many countries and cultures and it is easy to see how he gained the global perspective that resulted in his writings. It is sad that he died young, like so many at the time, of TB. (What that a spoiler? I don't think so).

[Robert Poortinga · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible biography written about an incredible man

[Hafsa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this for my research paper, and because I am a procrastinator i was pressured by time to finish it asap. but I still procrastinated by reading this book to make my life harder. I really liked this book and it really showed me why I feel connected to Gibran.


Here he would sit for hours sketching. This love of solitude, which marked Gibran out from many of his peers, fired his artistic, emotional, and spiritual life. Many years later he explained the relationship between “aloneness” and his art:

"People say such complicated things about my drawings. An English critic has written about my book of drawings, and oh! such meanings and such significance as he finds intended! – things I never meant at all! For when I draw, if it happens that I do something a little nice or with some worth, I’m unconscious. Three or four hours after it’s done I can’t tell you anything about what it looks like. I’m not that way when I write. I do know what I’m writing, but I don’t know what I’m drawing or painting. And actually when I read all these things that are sometimes said, I feel almost as if I were cheating. For I worked as simply as a child and I don’t recognize at all much of what I’m given credit for.

The only way to work is to do everything with the best that is in you. With the deepest heart of the heart and with the Eyes that are the fountain of the tears. I know living poets who never write from their inmost selves. They fear to be alone. And it hurts to be alone with themselves. They will not face that pain. If there is anything in my work that draws people, it is probably that something that speaks to the aloneness in each one of us. I love to be alone. And it is when I am alone and far away, whether I’m in the physical company of people or not, that I love them best. Then they are dear to me. But just let even a thumb’s pressure be put upon me to tame the wild something in me, and I feel it like a fetter. It rouses something bitter in me."

[Khodam · Rating 3 out of 5]

نغمه‌ها، سرانگشتان لطیفی هستند که حلقه بر در احساس می‌کوبند و حافظه را بیدار می‌کنند تا بتواند رویدادهایی را که گذر سالیان برجا گذارده، به خاطر آورد.