Forty Rules of Life Worth Living

After twenty years of marriage and building her whole life around her husband and three children, an American suburban housewife Ella Rubinstein realizes that she had not been able to make more of her life. Deep inside she becomes aware of her longing for love. Destiny puts in her hands an intriguing manuscript about the Sufi mystic poet Rumi. There begins the emotional and thoughtful journey that transfigures Ella’s life. Through the unparalleled intense relationship between Rumi and Shams of Tabriz unveils the forty rules of life, wisdom, spirituality and love; a guide to finding and developing one’s own inner self. In her quest to know the author of the work better, the lyrical manuscript turns out to bring a solution to her own feeling of incompleteness.

A novel within a biography, Elif Shafak’s Forty Rules of Love takes the reader through the introductory doors to the concept of Sufism. The times when the author tries to hit at mere external observance of religious values can have both or either profound and infuriating effects. Shifting between contemporary and historical narrative the deeper undertones of love and spirituality are explored with a simple and delicate touch.

For everyone who hunts everywhere for a life worth living, the author tries to convey, rather successfully, message that love is the very essence and purpose of life.

interactive editor