Visions of the Prophet

Ever since his best-selling book The Prophet was first published in 1923, Kahlil Gibran has been enchanting spiritually inclined readers with his dogma-free writings so rich with insight, wisdom, beauty, and truth. In this companion collection of little-known writings taken from his published works in Arabic, Gibran encourages us to bravely face life's hardships, and to continuously cultivate a rich inner life to set our moral compasses by.

In Visions of the Prophet, Gibran's narrator wrestles with the hypocrisies of Christianity ("Mad John," "The Man on the Cross") and challenges hypocrisy ("Kahlil the Ungodly"). He questions how children born of corrupt marriages and living in poverty can ever become soulful creatures ("The Sister Soul," "The Woman of Tomorrow") and urges us to develop our souls ("Solitude and Isolation"). The one-act dramatic play "The Many-Columned City of Iram" shows a Sufi master, a female sage, and a seeker having a heartfelt discussion about the natures of faith and reality.

Containing some of his most intellectually challenging work, Visions of the Prophet reveals a Gibran more vehement and vulnerable than in previous publications.

Visions of the Prophet brings more of Gibrans writings to an audience curious about who Gibran was and what else he wrote. A companion volume to The Eye of the Prophet, Visions is Gibrans most intellectually challenging book yet. Poems, short essays, and the dramatic play "The Many-columned City of Iram" trace the development of a young man through middle age to the end of his life, when he writes movingly about facing death. Mystic, patriot, and poet, Gibran urges us to uproot complacency and corruption, and champion Love and Truth.

Kahlil Gibran is known to Western readers for his phenomenally successful poem The Prophet, which sold over six million copies worldwide. He was born in 1883 in Lebanon and lived in the Middle East until 1921, when he moved to the United States. Written in Arabic, his books have been translated into twenty languages. Poet, philosopher, and artist, he was compared by August Rodin, the French sculptor, to William Blake.