Telfair Museum of Art in Savannah

This is the twenty first in Arab America’s series on American pathbreakers of Arab descent. The series includes personalities from entertainment, business, sports, science, academia, journalism, and politics, among other areas. John Mason, contributing writer, presents our twenty first pathbreaker, Khalil Gibran, born in Bsharri village of Ottoman-ruled Mount Lebanon in 1893. In time, Gibran became a well-known Lebanese American writer, poet, visual artist, and philosopher, most recognized as the author of The Prophet. First published in the U.S. in 1923, The Prophet is one of the best-selling books of all time and is translated into more than 100 languages. When it sold its millionth copy in 1957, it was sometimes referred to as the “bible” of the counterculture. The Prophet is deeply spiritual, poetic, and contains a message of peace, of which the World, especially the Middle East and Ukraine, is in such dire need.