Visions of the Prophet

Ever since his best-selling book The Prophet was first published in 1923, Kahlil Gibran has been enchanting spiritually inclined readers with his dogma-free writings so rich with insight, wisdom, beauty, and truth. In this companion collection of little-known writings taken from his published works in Arabic, Gibran encourages us to bravely face life's hardships, and to continuously cultivate a rich inner life to set our moral compasses by.

In Visions of the Prophet, Gibran's narrator wrestles with the hypocrisies of Christianity ("Mad John," "The Man on the Cross") and challenges hypocrisy ("Kahlil the Ungodly"). He questions how children born of corrupt marriages and living in poverty can ever become soulful creatures ("The Sister Soul," "The Woman of Tomorrow") and urges us to develop our souls ("Solitude and Isolation"). The one-act dramatic play "The Many-Columned City of Iram" shows a Sufi master, a female sage, and a seeker having a heartfelt discussion about the natures of faith and reality.

Containing some of his most intellectually challenging work, Visions of the Prophet reveals a Gibran more vehement and vulnerable than in previous publications.

KAHLIL GIBRAN (1883-1931) was born in a small village in Lebanon and emigrated with his family to the United States in 1895. There he was recognized as an exceptional young man, and his artwork and writing were supported and promoted by moneyed mentors. By the 1930s, he had become a prominent figure within New York literary circles and mixed with the likes of W. B. Yeats, Carl Jung, and Rodin, all of whose portraits he painted. Chiefly known for his 1923 book The Prophet, which has been translated into more than 40 languages and has sold more than 100 million copies worldwide, Gibran is the third best-selling poet of all time after Shakespeare and Lao-Tzu, and is widely considered to be one of the most popular and inspirational writers of the last century.