The Broken Wings

Kahlil Gibran wrote this poetic novel in Arabic, setting its love story in Beirut at the turn of the 20th century. Selma Karamy is engaged to the nephew of an influential religious figure, and the narrator, a young man Gibran may have modeled on himself, falls in love with her. Through their story Gibran takes up social questions of the Eastern Mediterranean in his day, among them religious corruption, the limited rights of women, and the balance between wealth and happiness. A Lebanese film version appeared in 1962, a stage musical premiered at London's Theatre Royal Haymarket in 2018, and the novel inspired the Mr. Mister hit Broken Wings.

Writer Kaci Lambe Kai said the novel shook her someplace deep.