"Judge us not severely."

Welcome ART “What’s Happening?” Viewers

I had a wonderful time on the show, and I hope my appearance will motivate more people to read Rihani’s masterpiece.

If you are interested in cooperating in the creation of an online annotated version of the novel, please email me at tdfine@gmail.com. This has been a long simmering project, and I still have some technological choices to make, but I would like to begin soon. Also email me if you are interested in helping to put more Arab-American literature in the public domain online through the Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders project. They have helped enormously in the creation of this e-book, and we will soon be posting The Book of Khalid in the Project Gutenberg archive.

Renunciation by Ameen Rihani

The Book of Khalid 1.0

Reactions to The Book of Khalid

  • The Book of Khalid

    The first task of this project has been to produce a clean HTML version of Ameen Rihani's 1911 novel which includes Khalil Gibran's impressive illustrations. It is available here. Those who would like to read the book with the original page images can also use the excellent Open Library version.

  • Annotation Project

    I believe one of the reasons Rihani's masterpiece is underread and understudied is his intentional use of difficult and obscure language to demonstrate his command of the English language and involve actual Arabic terminology. Many of the cultural references may also require additional explanation for some readers. I am creating an annotated version to eliminate this barrier to the work and would welcome any assistance. Creating a series of lesson plans for high school teachers is a connected goal.

  • Arab-American Literature in Public Domain

    A substantial amount of relevant literature in the public domain has still not been digitized and made available to the world. Working with Project Gutenberg and Distributed Proofreaders, this Project will try to correct this circumstance.