Ameen Rihani
2 books
- Rihani chants between Lebanon and New York in long unmetered lines, Whitman crossed with the Sufi poets. Prophetic mysticism is an acquired taste, but no one else in English was writing anything like it in 1920.
- Khalid is a Syrian dreamer peddling trinkets from a New York cellar, then wandering home to preach to whoever will listen, and Rihani tells it in mock-scholarly, digressive prose that's half satire, half sermon. Odd and demanding, but if you like philosophy dressed as comedy, it lingers.