The Book of Khalid
This long-awaited re-publication of the first Arab-American novel—inspiration for Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet—deals with Arab/American relations, religious conflict and the American immigrant experience.
Told with great good humor and worldly compassion, and with illustrations by Kahlil Gibran, The Book of Khalid recounts the adventures of two young men, Khalid and Shakib, who leave Lebanon for the United States to seek their fortune in turn-of-the century New York. Together, they face all the difficulties of poor immigrants—the passage by ship, admittance through Ellis Island and the rough immigrant life. Khalid, always the dreamer, tries to participate in the political and cultural life of the teeming city—to often humiliating and comic result.
Tiring of their sojourn, he convinces Shakib they should return to Lebanon.…
Ameen Rihani (1876–1940) was a poet, writer, diplomat and intellectual, who wrote in both English and Arabic. Born in Lebanon, he spent his teen years in New York, where, with his friend Kahlil Gibran, he was part of the literary and artistic circles of the day. As a writer, he was greatly esteemed in the United States during his lifetime, and he remains widely read in the Middle East to this day.
The Book of Khalid
Ameen Rihani
Gibran Khalil Gibran, usually referred to in English as Kahlil Gibran, was a Lebanese-American writer, poet and visual artist, also considered a philosopher although he himself rejected the title.