In Lebanon
Gibran was born in the Christian Maronite town of Bsharri in northern Lebanon. His maternal grandfather was a Maronite Catholic priest. His mother Kamila was thirty when Gibran was born; his father, also named Kahlil, was her third husband. As a result of his family's poverty, Gibran did not receive any formal schooling during his youth. However, priests visited him regularly and taught him about the Bible, as well as the Arabic and Syriac languages.
After Gibran's father, a tax collector, went to prison for alleged embezzlement, Ottoman authorities confiscated his family's property. Authorities released Gibran's father in 1894, but the family had by then lost their home. Gibran's mother decided to follow her brother, Gibran's uncle, and emigrate to the United States.Gibran's mother, along with Kahlil, his younger sisters Mariana and Sultana, and his half-brother Peter left for New York on June 25, 1895.
In the United States
Kahlil Gibran, Photograph by Fred Holland Day, c. 1898
The Gibrans settled in Boston's South End, at the time the second largest Lebanese-American community in the United States. His mother began working as a pack peddler, selling lace and linens that she carried from door to door. Gibran started school on September 30, 1895.School officials placed him in a special class for immigrants to learn English. Gibran's English teacher suggested that he Anglicise the spelling of his name in order to make it more acceptable to American society. Kahlil Gibran was the result.
Gibran also enrolled in an art school at a nearby settlement house. Through his teachers there, he was introduced to the avant-garde Boston artist, photographer, and publisher Fred Holland Day,[1] who encouraged and supported Gibran in his creative endeavors. A publisher used some of Gibran's drawings for book covers in 1898.
At 15, Gibran went back to Lebanon to study at a Maronite-run preparatory school and higher-education institute in Beirut. He started a student literary magazine with a classmate, and was elected "college poet". He stayed there for several years before returning to Boston in 1902. Two weeks before he got back, his sister, Sultana, age 14, died of tuberculosis. The next year, his brother Bhutros died of the same disease, and his mother died of cancer. His sister Marianna then supported Gibran and herself, working at a dressmaker's shop.
Kahlil Gibran, Photograph by Fred Holland Day, c. 1898
The Gibrans settled in Boston's South End, at the time the second largest Lebanese-American community in the United States. His mother began working as a pack peddler, selling lace and linens that she carried from door to door. Gibran started school on September 30, 1895.School officials placed him in a special class for immigrants to learn English. Gibran's English teacher suggested that he Anglicise the spelling of his name in order to make it more acceptable to American society. Kahlil Gibran was the result.
Gibran also enrolled in an art school at a nearby settlement house. Through his teachers there, he was introduced to the avant-garde Boston artist, photographer, and publisher Fred Holland Day,[1] who encouraged and supported Gibran in his creative endeavors. A publisher used some of Gibran's drawings for book covers in 1898.
At 15, Gibran went back to Lebanon to study at a Maronite-run preparatory school and higher-education institute in Beirut. He started a student literary magazine with a classmate, and was elected "college poet". He stayed there for several years before returning to Boston in 1902. Two weeks before he got back, his sister, Sultana, age 14, died of tuberculosis. The next year, his brother Bhutros died of the same disease, and his mother died of cancer. His sister Marianna then supported Gibran and herself, working at a dressmaker's shop.
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