In this lyrical, exuberant follow-up to her 2007 novel, The Bastard of Istanbul, acclaimed Turkish author Elif Shafak unfolds two tantalizing parallel narratives - one contemporary and the other set in the thirteenth century, when Rumi encountered his spiritual mentor, the whirling dervish known as Shams of Tabriz - that together incarnate the poet's timeless message of love.
Ella Rubenstein is forty years old and unhappily married when she takes a job as a reader for a literary agent. Her first assignment is to read and report on Sweet Blasphemy, a novel written by a man named Aziz Zahara. Ella is mesmerized by his tale of Shams's search for Rumi and the dervish's role in transforming the successful but unhappy cleric into a committed mystic, passionate poet, and advocate of love. She is also taken with Shams's lessons, or rules, that offer insight into an ancient philosophy based on the unity of all people and religions, and the presence of love in each and every one of us. As she reads on, she realizes that Rumi's story mirrors her own and that Zahara-like Shams-has come to set her free.
BOOK REVIEWS
Media Reviews
"Starred Review. Shafak’s seductive, shrewd, and affecting novel brilliantly revives the revelations of Shams and Rumi, and daringly illuminates the differences between religion and spirituality, censure and compassion, fear and love of life in our own violent world." - Booklist
"This novel, a best seller in Turkey, may appeal to fans of Nicholas Sparks or Robert James Waller." - Library Journal
"Celebrated Turkish novelist Shafak serves up a curious blend of mediocre hen lit and epic historical to underwhelming results." - Publishers Weekly
"Shafak should have dropped Ella's story, with its preachy spiritual ruminations, and stuck to Rumi's odyssey, which opens a window into a world Westerners know little about." - Kirkus Reviews
"[An} appealing fable ... The universal theme is the struggle between the rational mind and the aching heart. Shafak’s heroine yields to the latter and never looks back." - More Magazine (more.com)
Originally published in Turkish as Ask (Love) in 2009.
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