The Book of Khalid (Neversink)

Told with great good humor and worldly compassion, and with illustrations by Kahlil Gibran, The Book of Khalid recounts the adventures of two young men, Khalid and Shakib, who leave Lebanon for the United States to seek their fortune in tu
-of-the century New York. Together, they face all the difficulties of poor immigrants—the passage by ship, admittance through Ellis Island and the rough immigrant life. Khalid, always the dreamer, tries to participate in the political and cultural life of the teeming city—to often humiliating and comic result.

Tiring of their sojou
, he convinces Shakib they should retu
to Lebanon. But their heads are now full of New World ideas. And Khalid, trying to improve his brethren, tu
s his understanding of Weste
thought into a call for political progress, and religious unity and tolerance in the Arab world. A call that has him, accidentally, almost founding a new religion—and almost becoming its first martyr, when his ideas incite the faithful to riot.

Playing with classical Arabic literary forms, as well as Weste
literary conventions, Ameen Rihani’s The Book of Khalid is a unique contribution to American and World literature.