Word: gibran
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Alfred A. Knopf, then 23 and a newcomer to the book-publishing business, was introduced to a Lebanese artist-poet in a Greenwich Village cafe. Knopf had never heard of Kahlil Gibran, but his young publishing firm needed authors, and during the next four years he published three Gibran books; all sold dismally. The Prophet, brought out in 1923, did slightly better...
...rather ambitious first printing of 2,000, Knopf managed to sell 1,159 copies, and with that, presumably exhausted the market for Gibran...
...Cult. What supports such phenomenal sales? Certainly no effort of Knopf's other than making the book available in three editions,-two of them illustrated by twelve Gibran sketches of idealized nudes. The firm once launched an advertising campaign years ago but hastily canceled it when the only result was to reduce sales. It has not since promoted the book in any way. Who buys The Prophet"? Knopf can only guess. "It must be a cult," he has said, "but I have never met any of its members. I haven't met five people who have read Gibran...
...Gibran was instructed in the Maronite rites of the Roman Catholic Church, but he was not a churchgoer, and his book would be out of place in any cathedral. The Prophet, Almustafa, about to sail away from Orphalese, where he has sojourned for twelve years, submits to questions from the villagers. They ask him about Love, Joy, Sorrow, Freedom, Pain, Giving, Work and other human affairs. He answers in mystical terms that seem to carry great meaning: "Work is love made visible." "Your joy is your sorrow unmasked." "Beauty is Eternity gazing at itself in a mirror...
...sparse selection of sculpture even less can be said; such is doubly sad since sculptors once provided the Festival's most exciting works. Of the twenty-odd pieces only John Bergschneider's Lucifer and Kahlil Gibran's Torso are particularly good although Eleanor Koplow's amusing ceramic of Miami Beach will be the chief crowd-pleaser. The only notable ink drawing is one by Alexander Robert McDonald, and there are no memorable woodcuts or lithographs...