by Francesco Medici © Copyright Francesco Medici All Rights Reserved 2019 The Arab-American literary monthly review Al-Funoon (“The Arts”) began publication in April 1913 in New York City by editor and publisher Nasib Aridah,[1] already founder there in 1912 of the “Al-Atlantic Publishing Co.” After 29 issues it ceased publication in August 1918 due to several factors, such as paper supply, lack of subscription payment, manpower availability and World War I.[2]
Gibran’s Letters to Antony Bashir by Francesco Medici © Copyright Francesco Medici All Rights Reserved 2019 As a young clergyman, the Lebanese-born Antony (Antonious) Bashir (1898-1966), future Orthodox Archbishop of New York and Metropolitan of All North American archdiocese of the Church of Antioch from 1936 to 1966, was adept at translating from English into Arabic. It was Gibran who chose to entrust Bashir with the Arabic translation of all his English works published by Knopf in New York: The Madman (1918), The Forerunner (1920), The Prophet (1923), Sand and Foam (1926), Jesus, the Son of Man (1928), The Earth Gods (1931). ...
by Tania June Sammons © Copyright Tania June Sammons All Rights Reserved 2019 In October 1923, educator, philanthropist, and traveler Mary Haskell prophesized the success of The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran after receiving a copy of the book she helped bring to fruition. This book will be held as one of the treasures of English literature. And in our darkness we will open it to find ourselves again and the heaven and earth within ourselves. Generations will not exhaust it, but instead, generation after generation will find in the book what they would fain be—and it will be better loved as we grow riper and riper. Nearly one hundred years later The Prophet has sold millions of copies worldwide, never gone ...
by Joseph Nahas edited by Francesco Medici and Glen Kalem One day, instead of eating our lunch at the restaurant, Gibran and I prepared our own sandwiches and walked over to Battery Park. There we saw a blind man sitting on a bench, running his fingers over a white page covered with dots protruding through embossing. The man’s lips moved as if he were whispering to himself, as his fingers moved over the white sheet. As we passed by the blind man, Gibran remarked, “Let’s sit on the adjoining bench, eat our sandwiches quietly while watching this man with ‘seeing fingers.’” We sat down eating, while our eyes were fixed on the blind man, watching the expressions on his face, smiling now, frowning then, as his fingers deftly moved over one line after another, page after page. ...
by Francesco Medici © Copyright Francesco Medici All Rights Reserved 2019 On the night of 11 November 1904, a devastating fire completely gutted the Harcourt Studios, located on 23 Irvington Street, Boston. The building was shared by many of the city’s most notable artists, including Edmund C. Tarbell (1862-1938), Frank W. Benson (1862-1951), William P. Burpee (1846-1940), Joseph DeCamp (1858-1923), William Macgregor Paxton (1869-1941) and Fred Holland Day (1864-1933). [1] Unfortunately Gibran’s whole portfolio, that was in the st...
NEWS: Kahlil Gibran’s, The Prophet has been published by the Folio Society with colour illustrations of his original drawings for the first time. The Prophet entered the public domain at the beginning of this year fostering in a new era of publications that are keeping the books remarkable legacy alive. The Arts and Collectables International website has captured its re-birth in this article: https://www.artsandcollections.com/kahlil-gibrans-best-seller-the-prophet-issued-in-folio-society-illustrated-edition/ https://www.foliosociety.com/au/the-prophet.html
Gibran and Julia Ellsworth Ford: Two Rare Photographs by Francesco Medici © Copyright Francesco Medici All Rights Reserved 2019 “Mrs. Ford is one of the powerful women of New York […]. Last Sunday she took me in her car to her great country house in Rye, N.Y.” wrote Gibran to Mary Haskell in 1913. And again, one year after: “We had a dinner with the Fords. I enjoyed the evening very much – such rare people.”[1]
Gibran on His Excommunication by Joseph Nahas edited by Francesco Medici and Glen Kalem It was one evening when I happened to be at the office of His Eminence Archbishop Aftimios Ofiesh, titular head of the Russian Orthodox Catholic Church in North America and its islands, discussing an article written by me on the separation of that church from the Antioch Patriarchate with headquarters at Damascus, Syria. A coterie of writers – Gibran, Naseeb Arida, Abdul-Maseeh Haddad, Nadra Haddad (Abdul-Maseeh’s elder brother), Mikhail Takla, and Mikhail Naimy – arrived. Naseeb Arida was the publisher of an Arabic language magazine, Al-Akhlak, “The Character”; Abdul-Maseeh Haddad was the publisher of an Arabic language newspaper, As-Sayeh, “The Traveler”; Nadra Haddad was an officer in the Bank o...
by Francesco Medici Naoum Antoun Mokarzel (Freike, 1864-Paris, 1932) was a Lebanese political activist, influential intellectual and publisher, who immigrated to the United States where he established ‘Al-Hoda’ (The Guidance, 1898-1971), the largest Arabic daily in North America. In 1923, on the occasion ...
by Francesco Medici © Copyright Francesco Medici All Rights Reserved 2019 Indeed, as of today, Gibran’s literary works both in Arabic and English have all but been published, apart from maybe some fragments and other minor contributions. To find unpublished material we have to look above all at his many letters.[1] For example, his extensive correspondence with Mary Haskell Minis (between 1904 and the time of his death in 1931) and her private journal and diaries about him are still waiting to be published in their entirety. Said documents are part of the Minis Family Papers, 1739-1948, held in the Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA, which also contains Mary’s correspondence and various materials about Gibran, manuscrip...
by Glen Kalem In 2014 The Kahlil Gibran Collective announced the discovery of an
NEWS: Contributing writers for the Kahlil Gibran Collective, Francesco Medici and Glen Kalem have had their study on the translations of 'The Prophet' inspire an academic paper prepared by Professor Maya El-Hajj. We are proud to announce it has been published in 'Academy Publication' - Theory and Practice in Language Studies ISSN 1799-2591 Volume 9, Number 4, April 2019 under the title of "Aporias in Literary Translation: A Case Study of The Prophet and Its Translations." Links to the full article below. Medici and Kalem were...
By Glen Kalem " The Prophet …It is very inspiring. It is more or less a pattern for everyday living." Marilyn Monroe Robert F. Saltzer - The New York Journal-America1 Copyright © Glen Kalem all rights reserved 2019 Marilyn Monroe was a self-educated literate, and it may come as a surprise to many that she was like most self-educated people, (including myself) an avid reader of just about everything, with a wide variety of interests. We say ‘surprised’ because, f...
by Francesco Medici Copyright © Francesco Medici all rights reserved 2019 Between 1921 and 1922 Felix Faris (1882-1939), a prominent Lebanese activist, journalist, writer, poet and translator, spent seven months in the United States. In New York he met the members of Arrabitah (The Pen Bond) and became a close friend of Gibran, who considered him a “great literary brother.”1
Le Fol : Ses Paraboles et Poèmes By Philippe Maryssael A century ago, in October 1918, the very first book that Khalil Gibran wrote in English was published in New York: The Madman. It is an anthology of thirty-five texts of variable lengths – parables and poems – in which he tries, at the end of the Great War, to give significance and morality to life. Composed of texts that Gibran originally wrote in Arabic and translated in English, and also of texts that he wrote directly in English, this book is, in essence, an oriental work, with no influence of the Western world. In it, K...
by Joseph Nahas edited by Francesco Medici and Glen Kalem Copyright © Francesco Medici and Glen Kalem all rights reserved 2019 I first met Gibran Khalil Gibran at the office of an Arabic language newspaper, Al-Mohajer (“The Emigrant”), where I was employed as an assistant to Ameen Guraieb, publisher of the paper, and to his brother, Khalil.
by Francesco Medici Copyright © Franceso Medici all rights reserved 2019 Translations from the Original Spanish into English by Hilda de Windt-Ayoubi A few months before dying, Kahlil Gibran received in his New York studio two lady admirers. One of the women was an old acquaintance of...
by Joseph Nahas Edited By Francesco Medici and Glen Kalem Copyright © kahlilgibran.com all rights reserved 2019 On numerous evenings, Gibran and I sat on a bench in Battery Park listening to musical renditions by one of New York’s civic clubs’ bands, and, with newspapers rolled up in our hands (when punk sticks were not available), we swatted, or deflected the swarming, dive-bombing mosquitoes.
The Gibran Chair is holding a Symposium on Wedesday the 27th of March titled: Reshaping the Landscapes of Arab Thought: The Legacies of Kahlil Gibran, Ameen Rihani, and Mikhail Naimy. If you wish to attend please RSVP Here: ...
by Francesco Medici Copyright © Francesco Medici and kahlilgibran.com all rights reserved 2019 * This article is based on an excerpt from the paper "Tracing Gibran’s Footsteps: Unpublished and Rare Material", in "Gibran in the 21th Century: Lebanon’s Message to the World", edited by H. Zoghaib and M. Rihani, Beirut: Center for Lebanese Heritage, LAU, 2018, pp. 93-145.
