1883-1931. Khalil Gibran, writer, philosopher and, by all accounts, the third most popular poet in history after Shakespeare and Lao-Tzu, was born in the town of Bsharri in the north of Lebanon into a disadvantaged Maronite Christian family. Despite his challenging early childhood, Gibran rose to the level of world renowned author after his mother and siblings emigrated to Boston in America when he was twelve years old. The likes of Fred Holland Day, a pioneering artist, photographer and publisher and Mary Elizabeth Haskell, a well-to-do headmistress, were influential and supportive figures from early on in his career. Gibran wrote many acclaimed works in both Arabic and English. 'The Madman', published in 1918, was the first book he wrote in English while his 1923 work, 'The Prophet', is notably Gibran's best-selling book.

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THE PROPHET is a book of 26 prose poetry essays written in English by the Lebanese artist, philosopher and writer Kahlil Gibran. It was originally published in 1923 by Alfred A. Knopf. It is Gibran's best known work. The Prophet has been translated into over 40 different languages and has never been out of print. The prophet, Almustafa, has lived in the foreign city of Orphalese for 12 years and is about to board a ship which will carry him home. He is stopped by a group of people, with whom he discusses topics such as life and the human condition. The book is divided into chapters dealing with love, marriage, children, giving, eating and drinking, work, joy and sorrow, houses, clothes, buying and selling, crime and punishment, laws, freedom, reason and passion, pain, self-knowledge, teaching, friendship, talking, time, good and evil, prayer, pleasure, beauty, religion, and death.