The Earth Gods

Kahlil Gibran

Description

“The Earth Gods” is a 1931 work by poet and philosopher Kahlil Gibran. Gibran Khalil Gibran (1883–1931) was a Lebanese-American poet, writer, and visual artist most famous for his book “The Prophet” (1923), which remains one of the best-selling and most-translated books ever written. His work dealt with a variety of themes including justice, science, free will, love, the soul, happiness, the body, death, etc.; and are characterised by an unmistakable use of symbolism and melancholic style. First published in the year of his death, “The Earth Gods” revolves around a discourse between three gods (First God, Second God, and Third God) who proceed to discuss a range of spiritual concepts. “The Earth Gods” is a classic example of Gibran's mystical prose that will not disappoint those who have read and enjoyed other works by this seminal author. This classic work is being republished now in a new edition complete with a specially commissioned new biography of the author.

Informations

• Publié par: Read Books Ltd.
• Date de parution: 26 mai 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 2
• EAN13: 9781528790116
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

THE EARTH GODS
By
KAHLIL GIBRAN

First published in 1931


This edition published by Read Books Ltd. Copyright © 2019 Read Books Ltd. This book is copyright and may not be
reproduced or copied in any way without
the express permission of the publisher in writing
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library


Contents
Kahlil Gibran
THE EARTH GODS



Kahlil Gibran
Gibran Khalil Gibran was born on 6th January, 1883, in the historical town of Bsharri, in northern Mount Lebanon, then a semi-autonomous part of the Ottoman Empire.
Due to his family's poverty, Gibran had no formal education in his early years except for the Maronite Catholic priests who would visit to teach him about the bible, as well as the Arabic and Syriac languages. His father, who was his mother's third husband, was not a financially successful man, and after racking up gambling debts, was forced to take a position as a local administrator. However, in 1891, he was imprisoned for embezzlement and his family's property was confiscated. This prompted Gibran's mother to leave his father and migrate to the United States with her children in 1895.
They settled in the second-largest Syrian-Lebanese-American community, in Boston's South End, where young Kahlil, enrolled at an art school in a nearby settlement house. He was taken under the wing of the avant-garde artist, photographer, and publisher Fred Holland Day, who encouraged Kahlil's creative flare.
In 1904 he held the first exhibition of his drawings at Day's studio. During the exhibition, he met a respected headmistress ten years his senior, named Mary Elizabeth Haskell, who went on to become his editor. The two of them were well-known to be great friends, but it later emerged that in private they were lovers. In fact, Gibran twice proposed to her but marriage was not possible in the face of her family's conservatism.
Gibran's early works of poetry were in Arabic, but after 1918 he decided to write mainly in English. It was in 1918 that the Alfred A. Knopf publishing company published The Madman , a slim volume of aphorisms and parables written in biblical cadence somewhere between poetry and prose. This style brought him great success with his 1923 work The Prophet. Although it received a cool reception when first published, its notoriety grew and it is now his most famous work, never having been out of print and translated into more than forty languages. In Lebanon, Gibran is still celebrated as a literary hero, which is not surprising as he is actually the third best-selling poet of all time, behind only Shakespeare and Lao-Tzu.
Gibran died at the age of 48 in 1931 from cirrhosis of the liver and tuberculosis. The following year Mary Haskell and her sister Mariana purchased the Mar Sarkis Monastery in Lebanon in which he was buried. This is now the Gibran Museum. Written next to Gibran's grave are the words " A word I want to see written on my grave: I am alive like you, and I am standing beside you. Close your eyes and look around, you will see me in front of you."