The Birth of The Prophet

"Do you notice how full these things are of what we have said in talking together - sometimes years ago? There's
nothing in them that doesn't come from our talks. Talking about them with you has made them clear to me. And one
writes these things in order to find in anthem his own higher self. This poem has made me better. Everything that one
writes or paints is a picture or a story of his inner self. Every face that one draws is his own face."
Kahlil Gibran to Mary Elizabeth Haskell on May 6, 1918, after he revealed to her his first draft of "The Prophet." Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet was the best-selling book of the Twentieth Century, and it celebrates its Centennial Anniversary in 2023. Now, for the first time, from original letters and journals from a heavily-restricted and seldom-accessed archive, is the origin story of The Prophet, told in Kahlil's own words. From 1912 to 1923, Kahlil cultivated and then harvested the idea that came to him as a sixteen-year-old student in Beirut in 1899. Excerpted from the original documents are the inspirations for each chapter, attempts to write, the frustrations and tensions of depression that threatened completion and then the triumphant delivery of the book to the world a century ago. Fall in love with The Prophet again, and in a new way, as the book enters its next one hundred years of existence and brings its love to new generations of readers.