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The Forty Rules of Love

The Forty Rules of Love

Summary

THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER

*One of the BBC's '100 Novels that Shaped the World'*

"Every true love and friendship is a story of unexpected transformation. If we are the same person before and after we loved, that means we haven't loved enough . . ."

Ella Rubinstein has a husband, three teenage children, and a pleasant home. Everything that should make her confident and fulfilled. Yet there is an emptiness at the heart of Ella's life - an emptiness once filled by love.

So when Ella reads a manuscript about the thirteenth-century Sufi poet Rumi and Shams of Tabriz, and his forty rules of life and love, her world is turned upside down. She embarks on a journey to meet the mysterious author of this work.

It is a quest infused with Sufi mysticism and verse, taking Ella and us into an exotic world where faith and love are heartbreakingly explored. . .

'Enlightening, enthralling. An affecting paean to faith and love' Metro

'Colourfully woven and beguilingly intelligent' Daily Telegraph

'The past and present fit together beautifully in a passionate defence of passion itself' The Times

Reviews

  • A gorgeous, jeweled, luxurious book
    The Times

About the author

Elif Shafak

Elif Shafak is an award-winning British Turkish novelist, whose work has been translated into fifty-six languages. The author of nineteen books, twelve of which are novels, she is a bestselling author in many countries around the world. Shafak's last novel, The Island of Missing Trees, was a top ten Sunday Times bestseller, and was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award and the Women's Prize for Fiction. Her novel 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the RSL Ondaatje Prize. There Are Rivers in the Sky is her latest novel.
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