Prophet by Kahlil Gibran in Turkish Translation

Literary translations play a significant role in studying world literature contributing to the richness of literary thought and the language. Prophet written in English by a well-known Arabic writer and a prominent representative of Arab Immigrant Literature emerging in the beginning of the 20th century in the USA Gibran Kahlil Gibran, has been translated into many languages. A Turkish translation of this great work which carries deep literary-philosophical meaning and has a rich literary language and style, by Aytunc Altindal is an important work of literary translation. The plot, idea and style characteristics of Prophet, which has sources in Islam and Christianity, in Sufi teachings, in Eastern literature and Western romanticism, in Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Nietzsche and in many other religious and literary-philosophical thoughts, have been well preserved in this Turkish translation. When we hear the protagonist Al-Mustafa say “Ama sesimin kulaklar？n？zda sol？unla？t？？？ v？ sevgimin an？lar？n？zda yitti？i an yeniden aran？za d？nece？im”, it feels like it is an original writing and in a sense, the book attains a new life in its Turkish translation. Aytunc Altin, who in his Foreword to Prophet, calls Gibran an artist who “turned the Western eyes to the East,”is able to successfully present the Eastern spectrum of the book in Turkish by preserving the style of the Arab poet. The perspectives about the relationship between God and human, the nature of human beings, life and death, the path leading to God, the true moral have been presented as successfully as in the original. For example, in the chapter about Love, the translation of Gibran’s following writing “When you love, you should not say ‘God is in my heart,’ but rather, ‘I am in the heart of God’” fully contains the idea and the style of the original and sounds as poetic: “Sevgi g？lib sizi bulmu？sa, “Tanr？’y？ yüre？imde ta？？yorum” demektense, “Tanr？’n？n yüre？ine eri？tim” deyin