Gibran, Kahlil or Khalil (kulēl' jibrän') [key], 1883–1931, Lebanese poet and novelist. His family emigrated to America in 1895 and settled in Boston; Gibran moved to New York City in 1911. In all, he wrote eight books in English and nine in Arabic. Fusing elements of Eastern and Western mysticism, he achieved lasting fame with The Prophet (1923), a collection of 26 inspirational prose poems, presented as sermons preached by a sage. The book, a perennial bestseller since its publication, was particularly popular in the 1960s. His other books, also aphoristic and poetic, include Jesus, the Son of Man (1928) and The Garden of the Prophet (1934). A volume of his collected works was published in 2007.
See biographies by K. and J. Gibran (rev. ed. 1991), S. Bushrui and J. Jenkins and R. Waterfield (both: 1999).
