by Francesco Medici and Glen Kalem-Habib Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet was not written in some faraway mysterious land, as one might assume from reading it. Almustafa, Almitra, and the people of Orphalese did not emanate to life in some lonely hermitage on the top of a mountain, but – unbelievable as it may seem – in a bustling and sometimes "lively and festive” estate in the countryside of Massachusetts, USA. In the spring of 1918, Gib...

Hilda, the Woman Who Fell in Love with Kahlil Gibran and Mikhail Naimy by Francesco Medici One of Gibran’s pencil drawings that was relatively unknown was recently brought to my attention: a portrait of a woman signed and inscribed by the author: “For Anna Hilda from her friend Kahlil Gibran – 1928”. During his life, Gibran carried out hundreds of portraits and “heads”, both of famous people and of common men and women. And it was not rare that friends and acquaintances asked him for portraits of themselves or their relatives. Mainly for this reason, after almost a century after Gibran’s dea...

By Glen Kalem-Habib and Francesco Medici  all rights reserved copyright 2022 © When Kahlil Gibran died on April 10, 1931, he had been living for almost twenty years in a one-room studio apartment on the third story of 51 West Tenth Street, NYC. During the latter part of his life, he’d often refer to his studio as ‘The Hermitage’ (al-Sawma‘ah, in Arabic), perhaps wanting to invoke feelings of solitude and refuge away from the sprawling city of New York. Another reason might have been to arouse thoughts and memories of his birthplace in Bisharri, Mt Lebanon, a place he longed to go bac...

'Kahlil Gibran Collective'-founder, filmmaker and researcher Glen Kalem is joining the Levant News “Work is love made visible” is one of Glen Kalem’s favorite quotes from Kahlil Gibran’s iconic work, The Prophet. The Lebanese-Australian is an award-winning documentary film producer and research historian of the late poet and artist Kahlil Gibran. His research into the creation of Kahlil Gibran and much more is now available on this platform.By