Kahlil Gibran wished to write small books that could be read in one sitting and carried in the pocket. Between 1918 and 1926, he wrote four such books, and these were his first in English: The Madman (1918), the Forerunner (1920), Sand and Foam (1926) and The Prophet (1923). Like The Forerunner and Sand and Foam, The Madman is a collection of parables and aphorisms, which in true Eastern style draws on a world of kings, hermits, saints, slaves, deserts, animals that talk and wind that laughs.

Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931) best selling author and spiritual guide, was a man in search of himself and his place in the world. He was a writer and painter, based in the United States. An immigrant from Lebanon at the beginning of the 20th century, he wrote with one eye on his homeland, and with a restless questioning spirit. ‘He had an impetuous soul, a rebellious mind and an eye mocking everything it sees,’ one of his teachers said. ‘Half of what I say is meaningless,’ Gibran wrote. ‘But I say it so that the other half may reach you.’ Through Gibran’s writing, much has reached many.