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(Arabic: جبران خليل جبران ) (January 6, 1883 – April 10, 1931) was a Lebanese poet and artist. His poetry is notable for its use of formal language and insights on topics of life using spiritual terms. He emigrated to Boston, USA in 1895 with his mother, sisters and half-brother. He studied art in Boston, and French and Arabic in Lebanon. The spelling "Kahlil Gibran" is the result of an error when he first entered school in Boston.

Khalil Gibran grew up in the region of Bsharri in Lebanon. During his youth he did not receive any formal schooling since his family was poor, but he was visited regularly by priests who taught him about the Bible, the Syriac and Arabic languages. During his youth, his family's property was confiscated by the Ottoman authorities after Khalil Gibran's father was sent to prison for tax evasion. With no home, the Gibran family decided to follow Gibran's uncle and emigrate to the United States; they left for New York on June 25, 1895. Khalil Gibran's father was released in 1894 but decided to stay in Lebanon.

At the time the second largest Lebanese community was in Boston's South End, and thus the Gibran family decided to settle in that area. Gibran's mother started working as a peddler to bring in money for the family, and Khalil Gibran started school on September 30, 1895. It was during his school registration that a mistake caused his name to be shortened to Khalil Gibran, which, despite repeated attempts at correcting the mistake, stayed for him for the rest of his life. Because Khalil Gibran had no formal schooling in Lebanon he was placed in a special class for immigrants who had to learn English.

In his early teens, Gibran's artistic drawings caught the attention of his teachers, who introduced Khalil Gibran to Boston photographer and publisher Fred Holland Day, who encouraged and supported Gibran in his artistic and cultural endevours. His first art exhibition was in 1904 in Boston, and then he went to study art with Auguste Rodin in Paris from 1908 to 1910.

While most of Gibran's early literature works were in the Arabic language, starting in 1918 most of his published work was in English. His best-known work is i, which is a book that is composed of 26 poetic essays. Juliet Thompson, one of Khalil Gibran's acquaintances, is quoted in saying that Gibran told her that he thought of `Abdu'l-Bahá, the divine leader of the Bahá'í Faith after the death of its founder, all the way through writing i

Gibran died in New York City on April 10, 1931: the cause was determined to be cirrhosis of the liver, and tuberculosis. He was buried in the chapel of Mar Sarkis in Lebanon. He is probably the most famous Lebanese-American writer ever, and i remains widely popular, with certain passages being read at some weddings and christenings. Gibran's works were especially influential in the American popular culture in the 1960s. Many Americans have a misconception that Gibran is Muslim because of his Arabic name, which is actually a Christian-Arabic name. Much of Gibran's writings deal with Christianity mostly condemning the corrupt practices of the Eastern churches and their clergies during that era.

On Children, a poem by Kahlil Gibran with animation and sound. From Geometry from the Land of the Incas