From Bsharri to Boston:

 

The 95th anniversary of the passing of Gibran Khalil Gibran has prompted appreciation and remembrance of the late poet and artist, whose renown transcended borders and crossed seas. Many remember the writer for his most famous work, “The Prophet,” published in 1923, and continue to remember his legacy as a member of the Pen League nearly a century after his passing. On the occasion of this anniversary, Algerian-British writer Mouloud Ben Zadi inquires into the poet’s international presence in his essay, “Gibran’s Global Reach: How Was It Forged by Exile, Suffering, and Mary Haskell?”, published in Al-Quds Al-Arabi.*

 

Since his earliest days, Gibran Khalil Gibran was no stranger to poverty. Born to Khalil Saad Gibran and Kamileh Rahme on January 6, 1883, the young Khalil Gibran was raised in a Lebanese Maronite Christian family. Living in the village of Bsharri in Mount Lebanon, Ottoman-ruled at the time, the family suffered under abject poverty, worsened by the father’s alcoholism and gambling. In 1891, Gibran’s father was arrested on charges of embezzlement, prompting Kamileh’s decision to uproot the family in hopes of escaping their financial circumstances. Leaving with his mother and siblings — half-brother Boutros and younger sisters Sultana and Marianna — Gibran arrived in New York City in 1895, where they made their way to Boston’s South End, otherwise known as Little Syria.

 

Gibran returned to Lebanon around 1898 to continue his studies under Father Youssef Haddad at the Collège de la Sagesse in Beirut. However, tragedy struck, in quick succession, not long after; in 1902, Gibran returned to Boston two weeks after receiving news of his younger sister Sultana’s death by tuberculosis. Her loss was followed by the subsequent deaths of his half-brother Boutros within the same year, and his mother Kamileh to cancer in the following year. His only surviving family member, his younger sister Marianna, supported both herself and Gibran by working at a dressmaker’s shop.

 

In 1904, Gibran exhibited his drawings for the first time at the studio of the photographer and publisher F. Holland Day, whom he had first been introduced to during his student years. There, he met Mary Haskell and received an offer to display his work at her institution, a connection that would change the trajectory of his life and career.

 

Haskell took great interest in Gibran’s potential, sponsoring his studies and supporting his work. With her financial support, Gibran studied painting at the Académie Julian and the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris between 1908 and 1910. His time in Paris introduced him to the ideas of Syrian political thinkers promoting rebellion in Ottoman Syria following the Young Turk Revolution, according to “Prophet: The Life and Times of Kahlil Gibran” (1998) by Robin Waterfield. Gibran went on to echo similar sentiments and anti-clericalism in some of his Arabic language works, including “Spirits Rebellious” (1908), which was publicly burned in the Beirut marketplace by Maronite Church and Ottoman State officials who “judged it fiercely dangerous to the peace of the country,” as cited in “Kahlil Gibran: Spirits Rebellious,” published on the Fellowship of Reconciliation website.**

 

With doors in the Arab world seemingly closed, Khalil Gibran’s pen shifted towards the Western audience. However, he struggled to integrate into Western culture, particularly with learning English despite intensive study between 1895 and 1898. Having yet to master the language after living in the country for nearly 10 years, Gibran confided in a 1904 letter to Haskell that he still primarily thought in Arabic while trying to write in English, according to Ben Zadi. Mary Haskell’s influential role in Gibran’s success as a writer cannot be understated. His patron, editor, and advisor, she urged him to write in English rather than translate from Arabic, guiding him as an editor by polishing his phrasing, structure, and writing style. She refined his manuscript for “The Prophet,” which remains his most famous and successful work to this day, by helping to translate his ideas into English, allowing his words to reach a global audience.

 

Gibran returned to the States in 1911, relocating to New York City, a turning point which “granted him access to diverse artistic influences and allowed him to break free from the cultural constraints that had been imposed upon his community” in Little Syria, writes Ben Zadi, who suggests that in leaving his “isolation” within Little Syria, Gibran found a more open and expansive world within which he could broaden his artistic and intellectual horizons. Gibran ardently urged his fellow immigrants to “strike a balance between two allegiances: loyalty to their ancient heritage and loyalty to their new homeland,” states Ben Zadi. He encouraged Arab immigrants to remain faithful to their origins while actively contributing to the service of their new homelands, thereby opening broader opportunities for them.

 

Gibran’s dedication to mastering the English language and understanding Western thought granted him the invaluable insight to create works that resonated with a global readership. Yet, in the words of Ben Zadi, “Gibran never attained a level of complete literary mastery in English sufficient to enable him to reach a global readership entirely on his own.” The friendship, patronage, and help of Mary Haskell, his detachment from the immediate sphere of Arab cultural influence, and his openness to the Western world opened the doors to Gibran’s success as a writer worldwide, during his life and a century after his passing.