His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales, left, with Suheil Bushrui, foreground, right, at a special Temenos Academy function at Highgrove, the Prince's estate, in July 2002. In the background are Nicholas Parson, left, and David Cadman, right, both of the Temenos Academy.
Professor Suheil Badi Bushrui is a distinguished author, poet, critic, translator and media personality, well known in the United States, the Middle East and the Arab world as well as in India and Africa. While widely recognized for his seminal studies in English of the works of W. B. Yeats and for his translations of Yeats’ poetry into Arabic, Professor Bushrui is also the foremost authority in Modern Arabic Literature on the works of Kahlil Gibran, and he has done extensive work in Arabic and English on Ameen Rihani and his intellectual legacy as a bridge builder between the East and the West.
He has taught at the universities of Southampton and Oxford (U.K.); Calgary and York (Canada); Ibadan (Nigeria); and Antwerp and Brussels (Belgium); he has also lectured widely at several international institutes of higher learning in the East and the West. He was the first Arab national to be appointed to the Chair of English at the
American University of Beirut, a position he held from 1968 to 1986. Between 1985 and 1988 he served as Chairman of the International Association for the Study of Anglo-Irish Literature (IASAIL) and from 1971 to 1986 he was President of the Association of University Teachers of English in the Arab World
(AUTEAW). Between 1982 and 1988 he was Senior Cultural Advisor and official interpreter serving the President of Lebanon. In that capacity, he took an active part in many cultural activities designed to create national reconciliation and unity.
In 1983 he headed a presidential committee in Lebanon which organized the international celebrations to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Kahlil Gibran. These activities focused on the theme of Unity in Diversity and were held in Beirut, Oxford, London, Paris, and Washington DC.
Professor Bushrui is an International Fellow of the
Temenos Academy, an institution he has been closely associated with since its founding. He is an active participant in many international organizations dedicated to the promulgation of peace and conflict resolution. He is a founding member of the International Dialogue on Transition to a Global Society. He also serves on the Board of Governors of The
Temple of Understanding, a worldwide inter-cultural and inter-religious organization that is an affiliate of the United Nations. In addition, Professor Bushrui is a Creative Member of
The Club of Budapest.
Professor Bushrui has been the recipient of numerous awards. Among these are the Lebanese National Order of Merit in recognition of his distinguished international achievement in the field of English and Anglo-Irish literature, and his service to cultural and religious reconciliation in Lebanon; and the prestigious London University Una Ellis-Fermor Literary Prize for his work
on W.B. Yeats and the Anglo-Irish Theatre. In May 2004, Professor Bushrui received the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters from Franklin & Marshall College in recognition of his outstanding services to world peace and Gibran studies. His most recent awards are the Interfaith Bridge Builder Award by the InterFaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington (June
2007) and the Landmark Award for distinguished international service by the University of Maryland (November 2007).
Professor Bushrui’s published work is extensive in both English and Arabic; his work on Kahlil Gibran, in particular, has been translated into French, Italian, Spanish and Chinese. Among Professor Bushrui’s publications are the following: Kahlil Gibran—Man and Poet: A New Biography (co-authored with Joe Jenkins) (Oxford: Oneworld, 1998); Love Letters: The Love
Letters of Kahlil Gibran to May Ziadah, translated and edited with Salma Haffar al-Kuzbari (Oxford: Oneworld, 1999); Lebanese Literature in English: A Study of Ameen Rihani, Kahlil Gibran, and Mikhail Naimy, with an Introduction to the Contemporary Intellectual and Cultural Movements of the Time (Beirut: al-Mu’assasah al-Arabiya li al-Dirasat wa al-Nashr, 2000); Kahlil Gibran: A Spiritual Treasury (Oxford: Oneworld, 2001); The Wisdom of the Arabs (Oxford: Oneworld, 2002); The Essential Gibran (Oxford: Oneworld, 2007); and Gibran’s Little Book of Love (Oxford: Oneworld, 2007).
In 2006, Professor Bushrui had the privilege of editing with
Professor David Cadman a volume entitled
Selected Speeches and Articles of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales ; and in June 2007, he contributed to a special book submitted to the G-8 Summit meeting entitled
The Power of Dignity—Rethinking Globalization.
In support of the
Alliance of Civilizations, a United Nations initiative, Professor Suheil Bushrui and Professor David Cadman (Temenos Academy) will serve as general editors of a series of papers to be published under the auspices of the Center for Heritage Resource Studies at the University of Maryland.