A writer of the New York Pen League, Kahlil Gibran was born Gibran Kahlil Gibran in 1883 in the town of Bsharri, Mount Lebanon, Ottoman Syria. Owing to his family’s poor financial condition, Gibran did not receive any formal education in his childhood. He was taught at home by the visiting priests.
Most of Gibran’s early works were written in Arabic. His first work was a work about music. It was titled Nubthah fi Fan Al-Musiqa and was published in 1905. Ara’is al-Muruj, his second work, was published the next year. It was translated as Nymphs of the Valley, Spirit Brides and also as Brides of the Prairie.
Many of his works were written and published in English. These include The Madman (1918), Twenty Drawings (1919), The Forerunner (1920), The Prophet (1923), Sand and Foam (1926) and The Earth Gods (1931).
With a strong element of mysticism, which is influenced by Islam, Christianity, theosophy and Judaism, his works deal with spiritual love, joy and sorrow, marriage, children and death.
Gibran died from tuberculosis and liver cirrhosis on 10 April 1931 in New York.