The Broken Wings

"Broken Wings is a poetic novel written in Arabic by Kahlil Gibran and first published in 1912 by the printing house of the periodical Meraat-ul-Gharb in New York. It is a tale of tragic love, set at the turn of the 20th century in Beirut. A young woman, Selma Karamy, is betrothed to a prominent religious man's nephew. The protagonist falls in love with this woman. They begin to meet in secret, however they are discovered, and Selma is forbidden to leave her house, breaking their hopes and hearts. The book highlights many of the social issues of the time in the Eastern Mediterranean, including religious corruption, the rights of women (and lack thereof), and the weighing up of wealth and happiness. "