A. DAVID LEWIS
Lebanese American poet Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet is among the most cherished and widely translated works of 20thcentury free verse. The book tells the story of Almustafa, who, exiled from his homeland, has lived for 12 years as a refugee among the people of Orphalese. On the eve of his departure, Almustafa shares his wisdom via a series of poetic fables addressing the human condition. The Prophet has inspired and influenced figures as far-ranging as the Beatles, John F. Kennedy, and Indira Gandhi.
In June, coinciding with the book’s 100-year anniversary, The Prophet will receive a powerful new graphic novel treatment from Graphic Mundi. With script by A. David Lewis, a graphic novelist and scholar of comics and religion, and art by illustrator Justin Rentería, the insight and beauty of Gibran’s classic comes to life in full bloom.
The graphic novel features the original text, along with flashback sequences that shed additional light on Almustafa’s history. Lewis first became acquainted with Gibran’s work while attending graduate school at Georgetown University. At the time, Lewis had just finished creating The Lone and Level Sands, a graphic novel adaptation of Exodus as told from the perspective of the Egyptian royal family, so he was comfortable working with preexisting texts.
Around the time of the pandemic, Lewis felt ready for the undertaking. He also came across Rentería’s art and felt his work would perfectly complement Gibran’s prose. Among Lewis’s aspirations for the book is that a new generation of readers will be struck by the spare wonder of the classic work.
“It’s my hope that readers enjoy this version of The Prophet so much that, actually, they’re compelled to seek out the original text itself,” Lewis says. “I know that may be an odd goal—to create so strong a graphic novel that they discard it for its source material—but sparking interest in Gibran and enticing a reader to create their own visualizations of his words couldn’t please me more.”
Lewis will be in conversation with Bill Kartalopoulos, a comics critic, educator, curator, and editor, on Tuesday, May 23, 3:20–3:40 p.m.