The Madman: His Parables and Poems

By Kahlil Gibran

"This volume is in part translation from the Arabic parables, in part written directly in English. A small book of only seventy pages, it is a product of the poet's youth and early manhood, rich with promise of what was to follow. It is entirely of the East, with no shading of Western thought or content. It is an expression of the passionate inner life not yet restrained and controlled by the vaster wisdom andcompassion that came to bud in The Forerunner and to full flower in The Prophet . . .

"Here for the first time Gibran registers fully his sense of that aloneness which remained with him always, even unto the end. Always he was alien to this planet, to this time and this scene, yet always he battled to reduce this distance between himself and ourselves. But as he once said, 'Ye would not.'"

--Barbara Young, in This Man from Lebanon: A Study of Kahlil Gibran

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Jun 14, 2011
• ISBN: 9780307957788

Kahlil Gibran

Kahlil Gibran was a Lebanese-American writer, poet, and a philosopher best known for his, The Prophet. Born to a Maronite-Christian family in a village occupied by Ottoman rule, Gibran and his family immigrated to the United States in 1895 in search of a better life. Studying art and literature, and inevitably ensconced in the world of political activism as a young man dealing with the ramifications of having to leave his home-land, Gibran hoped to make his living as an artist. With the weight of political and religious upheaval on his shoulders, Gibran's work aimed to inspire a revolution of free though and artistic expression. Gibran's, The Prophet has become one of the best-selling books of all time, leaving behind a legacy of accolades and establishing him as both a literary rebel and hero in his country of Lebanon. Gibran is considered to be the third best-selling poet of all time, behind Shakespeare and Lao Tzu.