Pinhan (1997) • Şehrin Aynaları (1999) • Mahrem (The Gaze, 2000) • Bit Palas (The Flea Palace, 2002) • The Saint of Incipient Insanities (2004) • Baba ve Piç (The Bastard of Istanbul, 2006) • Black Milk: On Motherhood, Writing and the Harem Within (2007) • The Forty Rules of Love (2009) • İskender (Honour, 2011) • Ustam ve Ben (The Architect’s Apprentice, 2013) • Havva’nın Üç Kızı (Three Daughters of Eve, 2016) • THE LAST TABOO (2018) • 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World (2019) • How to Stay Sane in an Age of Division (2020) • The Island of Missing Trees (2021) • There Are Rivers in the Sky (2024) •
Elif Shafak is an acclaimed British-Turkish author, known for her richly layered novels that explore themes of identity, memory, exile, and the meeting points between East and West. She is the most widely read female author in Turkey and writes in both Turkish and English. Her literary works span fiction and nonfiction, blending historical narratives with contemporary issues.
Her bestselling novel The Forty Rules of Love (2009) brought her international recognition, offering a reimagined tale of Rumi and Shams of Tabriz woven with a modern narrative. Other notable books include The Bastard of Istanbul, 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World (shortlisted for the Booker Prize), and The Island of Missing Trees (also shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction).
Shafak holds a PhD in political science and often addresses feminism, freedom of expression, and minority rights in her work. She has received numerous awards and honorary doctorates and is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Her fiction has been translated into over 55 languages. In 2018 she handed her manuscript The Last Taboo to the Future Library, which was preceded by Three Daughters of Eve in 2016 and followed by 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World in 2019.
Pinhan (1997) • Şehrin Aynaları (1999) • Mahrem (The Gaze, 2000) • Bit Palas (The Flea Palace, 2002) • The Saint of Incipient Insanities (2004) • Baba ve Piç (The Bastard of Istanbul, 2006) • Black Milk: On Motherhood, Writing and the Harem Within (2007) • The Forty Rules of Love (2009) • İskender (Honour, 2011) • Ustam ve Ben (The Architect’s Apprentice, 2013) • Havva’nın Üç Kızı (Three Daughters of Eve, 2016) • THE LAST TABOO (2018) • 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World (2019) • How to Stay Sane in an Age of Division (2020) • The Island of Missing Trees (2021) • There Are Rivers in the Sky (2024) •
Title: The Forty Rules of Love
Author: Elif Shafak
First Published: 2009, Viking
Present Library Copy: Penguin Books, 2011
Language: English
Genre: Literary Spiritual Fiction
Place of Writing: Istanbul, Turkey and London, UK (2007 - 2008)
Pages: 368
ISBN: 978-1-84659-037-5
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 Zahara's tale of Shams of Tabriz'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.
The Forty Rules of Love unfolds two tantalizing parallel narratives—one contemporary and the other set in the thirteenth century, when Rumi encountered his spiritual mentor, Shams, the whirling dervish—that together explore the enduring power of Rumi's work.
“A Novel of Rumi—Gorgeous, jewelled, luxurious book ”
The Times, London
The Times, London