The Mahjar, Arab exile

Mahjar means place of emigration. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Syrians and Lebanese who had landed in New York and São Paulo founded literary circles, the Pen League in New York in 1920, and began to write an Arabic freed from inherited rhetoric. Distance gave them freedom: free verse, poetic prose, spiritual and intimate subjects. Gibran's The Prophet, written in English, became one of the best-selling books of the century. That detour through America shook Arabic poetry well before the modernists of Beirut.

works 5

• NovelThe Book of KhalidAmeen Rihani · 1911The first novel an Arab author published in English, illustrated by Gibran.Literature
• PoetryThe ProphetKahlil Gibran · 1923A prophet's farewell to the city where he has lived, in twenty-six meditations written in English.Literature
• PoetryThe StreamsAl-JadawilElia Abu Madi · 1927Verses by an emigrant, which the Arabic-language newspapers of America published one by one.Literature
• Poetryالأرواح الحائرةNasib Arida · 1946not translated into EnglishThe poetry of Syrian-Lebanese emigration in New York, between nostalgia for the native land and metaphysical unease.Literature
• NovelThe Book of MirdadMirdadMikhail Naimy · 1948A spiritual teaching that a London publisher rejected as a new religion.Literature