Kahlil Gibran

Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) was born at Bsharri, in what is now Lebanon, and emigrated with his mother to Boston in 1895. He studied art in Paris, wrote first in Arabic and later in English, and settled in New York, where he was the central figure of the Arabic-language literary circle there. The Madman (1918), The Forerunner (1920) and The Prophet (1923) are the best known of his English books. He was a painter as well as a writer, and is buried at Bsharri.