A newly surfaced Gibran watercolour, hidden for over a century inside a presentation copy of Twenty Drawings, sheds light on the Parisian diplomat and writer who helped to bring Gibran's first English book to Alfred Knopf.

In 1905 the young Kahlil Gibran published his very first book — a slim hymn in prose to the art of music. Francesco Medici traces the melodies that ran through Gibran’s life, from the ‘Atābā of Bišarrī to the symphonies of Boston, and from a love declared in red ink to the funeral marches that carried him home. By Francesco Medici  

  A Damascus-born lawyer, poet, and tireless advocate for Syrian immigrants in America — Jamil B. Holway stood at the margins of the Mahjar literary world, known to everyone, claimed by no one, and now al...

  A Syrian poet, publisher, and nationalist who helped forge Arab-American literary identity — and who died four days before his only book of poems reached print.

A new monument in Lower Manhattan has ignited a fierce debate about identity, history, and who has the right to name the dead. Glen Kalem-Habib traces the paradox at the heart of the controversy - and offers an answer no plaque can contain. By Glen Kalem-Habib | Kahlil Gibran Collective · May 2026    

In the spring of 1946, a poet named Barbara Young signed her name in a guest book at a summer house in the Adirondack wilderness. It is one small token of a friendship that ran deep — one that produced years of correspondence, shared lunches, and the gifting of objects from Gibran’s own personal collection. This is the story of Barbara Young, Kahlil Gibran’s devoted secretary and biographer, and of Madeleine McAlpin Vanderpool — the woman whose friendship with Young would ultimately lead to the most significant donation of Gibran-related material ever made to our collection.

  Al-Qalam: A Monument to the Poets and Community of Little Syria Comes to Light — Kahlil Gibran Collective Inc.

• ❧ KGC ❧ • Kahlil Gibran Collective  ·  Articles Figs, Halvah and the Face of the Prophet A Testimony from the Past on Gibran and Naimy By Francesco Medici Kahlil Gibran Collective  ·  2026  ·  kahlilgibran.com Stefan Kanfer (1933–2018), American journalist, critic, editor and author. The 1972 New York Times article "But is it not strange that even elephants will yield – and t...

• ❧ KGC ❧ •   KAHLIL GIBRAN COLLECTIVE Still Speaking The Prophet at 117 Languages — and Still Growing New translations confirm Kahlil Gibran's masterpiece as one of the most translatedsingle-author works in the history of the written word By Glen Kalem-Habib Contributing Writer Francesco Medici Kahlil Gibran Collective  ·  April 2026  ·  kahlilgibran.com

Gibran's Heavenly Flower The Life and Art of Yusuf Huwayyik By Francesco Medici.  The first art school founded in Lebanon was the inaugurated in Beirut in 1937, followed some twenty years later by the establishment of the American University of Beirut's Department of Fine Arts and Art History. In the 1950s and 1960s, the first art galleries emerged, finally introducing the country to the works of local artists. While younger generations were able to train in their homeland, those who preceded them — generally from well...

LITERARY HISTORY  ·  ARAB-AMERICAN PRESS  ·  KAHLIL GIBRAN "The Functions of Journalism" A Hidden Gem of Kahlil Gibran By Glen Kalem-Habib and Francesco Medici   In the closing years of the nineteenth century, a Lebanese political activist, intellectual, and publisher named Naoum Antoun Mokarzel arrived in the United States with an ambition that would reshape the cultural landscape of Arab America. Born in Freike in 1864, Mokarzel founded "Al-Hoda" — Arabic for "The Guidance" — in 18...

As Told and Recorded by Joseph Nahas by Francesco Medici All Rights Reserved © Copyright Francesco Medici 2026

by Philippe Maryssael, retired translator and terminologist, translator of Kahlil Gibran and contributor to the Kahlil Gibran Collective – Arlon, Belgium, January 15, 2025 – All rights reserved copyright © 2026. Madeline Mason, the very first translator of "The Prophet" in French In 1926, three years after the publication of Kahlil Gibran's masterpiece The Prophet, Madeline Mason (1908-1990) had her French translation published in Paris, France, by Éditions du Sagittaire under the title Le Prophète, as a 750-copies-only numbered edition.

Would you like to host a Kahlil Gibran event in your city?  Lekme’ wou Hekme—“A Bite of Wisdom” is coming to a city near you. Imagine hosting an intimate gathering that celebrates the Art, Words and Spirit of Kahlil Gibran, whilst eating an inspired meal, all the while engaged in a meaningful conversation with Kahlil Gibran scholars?  How does it work? Working with a chosen local venue in your city, the KGC will transform the space into an immersive experience that captures the essence of Gibran. Guests are welcomed into a uniquely curated exhibition of art a...

by Francesco Medici All Rights Reserved © Copyright Francesco Medici 2025   Rasheed Ayoub was born in Baskinta, Lebanon, in 1873 (though some sources cite 1871 or 1872). As a teenager, he travelled to Paris, where he stayed for three years before moving to Manchester for a similar period to work in the export trade. After a brief return to his native village, he emigrated to New York as a merchant and soon became part of the Mahjar literary movement. Together with other expatriate writers, he founded al-Rabitah al-Qalamiyyah (the Pen League), also known simply as Arrabitah, the first Arab-American literary society. In the United States,...

By Glen Kalem-Habib All rights reserved © copyright 2025 There are many monuments and plaques around the world dedicated to Kahlil Gibran, but they commemorate him exclusively as a great Arab-American writer and artist. On the morning of November 21, 2025, for the first time ever, a stele was dedicated to him as a “Righteous of Humanity,” in recognition of a lesser-known aspect of his life: his political engagement during the years of the Great Famine in his homeland, as secretary of the Syrian-Mount Lebanon Relief Committee, founded in New York in 1916 by a group of distinguished Syrian-Lebanese residents in the United States. The solemn event, organized by the Academy of Mediterranean Studies (Accademia di Studi ...

By Glen Kalem-Habib Based on the published essay "ask not" by Enerst G. Tanis Contributing writers Jean Pierre Dahdah PHD,  Philippe Maryssael, Ray Jureidini, Francesco Medici All rights reserved © copyright 2025 When I meet people for the first time and the conversation moves beyond the shallow waters of current affairs or my day job, I sometimes mention my connection to the late artist and poet Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931). The response is usually one of a few familiar refrains: "Oh yes, I read his poetry at university," or "His words were recited at our wedding." Even better is: "I've read The Prophet, but I don't know much about the author… Kaa-ill Gibb-ran!" I love these exchanges! Often, people walk away having learned a thing or two about Gibran from a guy who, more often than not, looks...

by Francesco Medici All Rights Reserved © Copyright Francesco Medici 2025 Between the late 1910s and early 1920s, Kahlil Gibran had nearly abandoned his “Temple of Art” portrait series, but he still enjoyed portraying his friends and decorating their books. For example, he had offered to illustrate Carl Gad’s Johan Bojer: The Man and His Works in 1920, and Witter Bynner’s The New World in 1922. In March of the same year, a precious and scarce volume of only 32 pages was published, that is hardly mentioned by the scholars and biographers of the Lebanese writer. It is an anthology of poetry entitled Companions, to which Gibran contributed as an arti...

By Eddy Choueiry  All rights reserved © copyright 2025  "It is a pity you cannot sit upon a cloud".              Sand and Foam : 1926 Once, I heard someone say that in culture, we could substitute Kahlil Gibran’s literature with the works of Francis Marrash, Nietzsche, or Tagore, and his paintings easily with those of J.M.W. Turner, William Blake, or Eugène Carrière. As a researcher, I traced his influences to compare his ethereal figures to Turner’s luminous atmospheres, his spiritual symbolism to Blake’s m...

by Francesco Medici and Glen Kalem-Habib – July 12, 2025 – All rights reserved. Copyright © 2025.   In the late spring of 1910, after a six-year period of solitude in his native mountains, Ameen Rihani (1876–1940) left Lebanon to return to New York (for the third time in his life). In June he made a stop in Paris, where he met with two fellow writers and artists, Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) and Yusuf Huwayyik (1883–1962), who were both then attending the Académie Julian and sharing a small studio-apartment in Montparnasse at 14 avenue du Maine. During that month the three compatriots laid plans for nothing less than the cultural renaissance of the Arab world. The cornerstone of their program was reconcil...