The acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of Smash Cut Flannery and City Poet delivers
the first popular biography of Rumi the thirteenth-century Persian poet revered by
contemporary Western readers. Ecstatic love poems of Rumi a Persian poet and Sufi mystic born
over eight centuries ago are beloved by millions of readers in America as well as around the
world. He has been compared to Shakespeare for his outpouring of creativity and to Saint
Francis of Assisi for his spiritual wisdom. Yet his life has long remained the stuff of legend
rather than intimate knowledge. In this breakthrough biography Brad Gooch brilliantly brings
to life the man and puts a face to the name Rumi vividly coloring in his time and place-a
world as rife with conflict as our own. The map of Rumi's life stretched over 2 500 miles.
Gooch traces this epic journey from Central Asia where Rumi was born in 1207 traveling with
his family displaced by Mongol terror to settle in Konya Turkey. Pivotal was the disruptive
appearance of Shams of Tabriz who taught him to whirl and transformed him from a respectable
Muslim preacher into a poet and mystic. Their vital connection as teacher and pupil friend and
beloved is one of the world's greatest spiritual love stories. When Shams disappeared Rumi
coped with the pain of separation by composing joyous poems of reunion both human and divine.
Ambitious bold and beautifully written Rumi's Secret reveals the unfolding of Rumi's
devotion to a religion of love remarkable in his own time and made even more relevant for the
twenty-first century by this compelling account.
