Reading room

Spirits Rebellious

Kahlil Gibran

Four stories—'Warda al-Hani', 'The Cry of the Graves', 'The Bridal Couch' and 'Khalil the Heretic'—denouncing forced marriage, the justice of emirs and the clergy's complicity with the powerful. Its anticlericalism caused scandal in Lebanon; Barbara Young said the book was burned in Beirut, and rumours spread of an excommunication that was never formally pronounced.