Khalil Gibran (born January 6, 1883, Bsharrī, Lebanon—died April 10, 1931, New York, U.S.), was a Lebanese-American philosophical essayist, novelist, poet, and artist. After receiving his primary education in Beirut, Gibran immigrated with his parents to Boston in 1895. He returned to Lebanon in 1898 and studied in Beirut, where he excelled in the Arabic language. On his return to Boston in 1903, he published his first literary essays; in 1907 he met Mary Haskell, who was to be his benefactor all his life and who made it possible for him to study art in Paris. In 1912 Gibran settled in New York City and devoted himself to writing literary essays and short stories, both in Arabic and in English, and to painting.
