Khalil Gibran, one of the world's great thinkers, was born on January 6, 1883 in the village of Bisheri (present-day Republic of Lebanon) on Mount Lebanon. His mother's name was Kamila Rahimi, the daughter of a pastor. His father's name was Khalil, who was the servant of the local Sultan. Kamila was 30 years old at the time of her birth. Khalil Gibran was the first child of her third husband. After her birth, two more daughters were born to Kamila, Mariana in 1885 and Sultana in 1887.

The Madman, His Parables and Poems is a book by Khalil Gibran, published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf in 1918, with illustrations reproduced from original illustrations by the author. It was Gibran's first book to be published in English, which also marked the beginning of the second phase of Gibran's career.

An excerpt from the book Mad Man

You ask me how I got mad. It happened like this: One day, long before the birth of many gods, I woke up from a deep sleep and found that all my masks had been stolen, the seven masks I had made and wore in seven lifetimes, - I shouted to the crowd- Ran through the congested streets without a mask, "thief, thief, damned thief."

Men and women laughed at me and some ran towards their homes in fear of me.