Gibran's Unpublished Letters to Archbishop Antonious Bashīr

Abstract

AbstractThese are some of Gibran's unpublished letters to Archbishop Antonious Bashīr. They were unknown and unpublished until November 11, 2004, when they appeared in the original Arabic in the Lebanese daily newspaper, Al-Nahār (Almulhaq). According to Al-Nahār, these letters remained hidden among the archives of the Greek Orthodox Diocese in North America. It appears that Archbishop Philip Salība one day was searching in the old files of his predecessor, Antonious Bashīr, when he accidentally found these letters. Apparently, Gibran had written them to his friend, Antonious Bash¬r, who was also the translator of the Prophet into Arabic. The Lebanese newspaper adds that these letters acquire great importance as they constitute, on the one hand, a dialogue between the author and his translator, and on the other, they form part of Gibran's great literary heritage of which many hidden treasures have not yet been discovered.