Rumi's Secret: The Life of the Sufi Poet of Love

Often called the greatest mystical poet of any age, 13th-century Persian poet and Sufi master Rumi has been appreciated for centuries beyond the confines of his birthplace. Gooch (English, William Paterson Univ.; Flannery) retraces the life and times of Rumi by highlighting important benchmark events in his life and by revisiting locations in central and western Asia where he traveled and lived. Rumi's story is full of mystery and meaning, or as Gooch puts it, full of secrets—personal, poetic, and theological: "Like Whitman, or like Shakespeare, he never tells his secret." Drawing loosely on past works on Rumi, this passionate and compelling biography provides a richness of context through which one can understand the life of the Sufi mystic from new and colorful angles. For many of his facts, the author relies on Franklin D. Lewis's Rumi: Past and Present, East and West. Gooch immersed himself in studying Rumi, taking intensive Persian courses, traveling 2,500 miles retracing the map of the poet's life, and began translating him in collaboration with an Iranian American writer.