The Forty Rules of Love

Praise for The Forty Rules of Love:

“Here’s a middle-aged love story and the inside story of one of history’s great friendships, and on top of all that, the story of the battle within medieval Islam between the conservatives and the Sufis… Laugh, cry, tear your hair out as you learn.”
—NPR.org

“A captivating and wise book . . . The tale of the fated meeting, spiritual companionship, and tragic parting of [Rumi and Shams of Tabriz] is beautifully recounted in The Forty Rules of Love. . . . Shafak draws on facts from Rumi’s and Sham’s biographies and brings them to life with deft storytelling.”
—Associated Press

“A gorgeous, jeweled, luxurious book . . . The past and the present fit together beautifully in a passionate defense of passion itself.”
—The Times (London)

“In this appealing fable, Turkish author Elif Shafak toggles between characters from different times: a modern American housewife and a thirteenth-century poet. . . . The universal theme is struggle between the rational mind and the aching heart. Shafak’s heroine yields to the latter and never looks back.”
—More magazine