Carry The Prophet in your coat pocket

_{Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931) was born into a Maronite Christian family in Lebanon and emigrated to the United States when he was twelve. He gained some fame as a Symbolist style artist and poet in Greenwich Village, writing in both Arabic and English, and died young of cirrhosis of the liver. The Prophet was published in 1923, but it was only really in the sixties that this collection of vaguely mystical, anti authoritarian teachings became a cult work revered by Elvis Presley, The Beatles, David Bowie — a book found on every self-respecting bookshelf, including that of the fiction-writer Jonas Hassen Khemiri’s childhood home in Sweden.}

Photographer: F. Holland Day, c. 1898. Library of Congress [Public domain)

One day you will find it on your mother’s bookshelf, thin as a map, small as a notebook. The cover is light blue and decorated with dark blue flowers. The title is written in red: Le Prophète and the name of the author in black: Khalil Gibran. On the inside of the book, in blue handwritten ink: your mother’s name.

The name of the writer is more similar to your family name than any other writer whose books you have read so far. It’s probably the first time you see a name that starts with the letters KH on a book cover, Khalil, like one of your cousins, like your grandmother’s favorite butcher. KH as in your family name, the sound that you’re never sure about how to pronounce. KH as in « cat » when you are in your home country, KH as in « Bach » when you are in your father’s country. But who cares about names? Nobody. You live in a world that tries to convince you that names are superficial things, names are easily exchangeable, no name has more power than another name, a person’s name is just an empty symbol, but still, something happens when you see that writer’s name, on that book, when you’re fifteen years old and hold The Prophet in your hands for the first time.

A few days later you have finished the book with the help of a French dictionary and then you carry the book with you for weeks. It’s so small that it fits in every coat pocket. You never bring it out and recite Gibran’s ancient wisdom, you don’t say « the lust for comfort murders the passion of the soul » to a basketball friend who is dating a hair model, you don’t say « it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy » when mum is happy because dad finally comes home, but you bring The Prophet with you wherever you go, and you dream of one day finding a place where you won’t need to « fold your wings that you may pass through doors », nor bend your head « that they strike not against a ceiling ».