In a new definitive biography Robin Waterfield traces the influences that made Gibran, from the decadence of fin-de-siecle Boston to the vigour of Greenwich village in its heyday before the First World War. He explores Gibran's development from wounded Romatic and angry young man to his final metamorphosis as the Prophet of New York. While looking at Gibran's development as a writer, the biography also offers fresh insights into his life and loves, completely reappraising all of the remaining primary sources on Gibran's life and character. Behind the legendary, best-selling phenomenon there was a real man - a man who loved and lost, and was in many ways unhappy, and ended up by burning himself out with overwork and alcoholism.