logo
episode-header-image
Mar 2014
53m 29s

Elif Shafak - The Forty Rules of Love

Bbc World Service
About this episode

This month we’re talking to one of Turkey’s foremost writers Elif Shafak.

She’s answering your questions about her bestselling novel The Forty Rules of Love, an investigation into love, mysticism and the life of the famed Sufi poet Rumi.

Crossing continents and centuries two parallel love stories unfold and lives are turned upside down: Ella, an unhappily married modern day American housewife falls for a mysterious email correspondent and Rumi, the 13th Century mystic encounters his spiritual mentor, the wandering dervish, Shams of Tabriz.

Photo: Mychele Daniau/AFP/Getty Images.

Up next
Jul 5
Graeme Macrae Burnet
On this episode of ‘World Book Club’ Harriett Gilbert speaker with with Graeme Macrae Burnet about his riveting historical crime novel ‘His Bloody Project’ Set in a remote Scottish community in the 1800s, the story centres on a brutal triple murder and the person who admits guilt ... Show More
49m 20s
Jun 7
N.K Jemisin
In this episode of World Book Club, Harriet talks with one of the world’s best-loved sci-fi and fantasy authors, the four time Hugo award winner N.K Jemisin. Which of her plethora of books did we choose? Her 10th novel, and love letter to New York, ‘The City We Became’.The story ... Show More
55m 43s
May 3
Abdulrazak Gurnah: Paradise
Harriett Gilbert talks with Nobel laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah about his hauntingly beautiful novel Paradise.It tells the story of Yusuf, a 12 year-old boy living in East Africa at the beginning of the 20th Century. Sold off to settle his father’s debts, Yusuf embarks on a journey ... Show More
49m 26s
Recommended Episodes
Apr 2013
Elif Shafak - The Forty Rules of Love
Turkey's leading female novelist Elif Shafak discusses her novel The Forty Rules of Love. The novel is about finding love and is written in two strands. One is the friendship between a whirling dervish and the Sufi poet Rumi in 13th century Anatolia; the other is about a mother i ... Show More
27m 19s
May 2017
Elif Shafak
Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the Turkish writer Elif Shafak. Elif Shafak has published ten novels and several volumes of non-fiction and her work is translated into 47 languages. She is the most widely read female novelist in Turkey today.Born in 1971, she was raised by a ... Show More
35m 10s
Jun 2017
Brad Gooch, “Rumi’s Secret: The Life of the Sufi Poet of Love” (Harper, 2017)
Ever since their composition in the 13th century the poems of the Persian writer Rumi have enthralled millions of readers around the world. In Rumi’s Secret: The Life of the Sufi Poet of Love (Harper, 2017), Brad Gooch describes the life of their author and the path that took him ... Show More
48m 39s
Oct 2017
Rumi: Sufi poet of love
From East to West, Rumi is one of the most universally respected poets of all time. A 13th Century Islamic scholar, his encounter with a wandering dervish transformed him into a globally celebrated mystic and poet of love who has crossed borders of time, faith, language and geogr ... Show More
39m 26s
Dec 2021
Elif Shafak
Elif Shafak, author of the acclaimed The Bastard of Istanbul and The Forty Rules of Love, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for her 2019 novel 10 Minutes and 38 Seconds in This Strange World. The Turkish-British writer joins us to talk about her latest novel, The Island of Mis ... Show More
20m 10s
Mar 2023
George Eliot and married life
George Eliot was a leading novelist who scandalised Victorian society by eloping to Germany with a married man and living in unlawful conjugal bliss. She dedicated her books to ‘her husband’ and wrote of 'this double life, which helps me to feel and think with double strength'. T ... Show More
41m 55s
Jun 2023
Women writing family sagas
Kim Chakanetsa meets two writers who, in their work, explore the themes of love, identity, belonging and inter-generational trauma. Min Jin Lee is a South Korean - American author who wrote two novels, Free food for millionaires and Pachinko, a multi-generational saga following t ... Show More
27m 34s
Feb 2023
Stories of Love
Proust as an agony uncle, Romeo and Juliet rewritten as 21st century Welsh teenagers in a new drama by Gary Owen, the Lesbian coming of age novel by Rita Mae Brown that inspired the lead character in Willy Russell's Educating Rita to change her name and a new book inspired by the ... Show More
44m 44s
Jan 2021
Épisode 86 - Dépasser la honte avec Fatima Daas
La primo-romancière prodige Fatima Daas est l’invitée du 86e épisode de La Poudre. Avec Lauren Bastide, elles ont parlé de Faïza Guène, d’Annie Ernaux et de Virginie Despentes. L’édito de Lauren : Il y a des livres qui mettent des claques. Pas seulement aux lectrices et aux lecte ... Show More
48m 7s
Apr 2023
Ep. 487 - The Mysterion with Kabir Helminski
Teacher, translator, and Rumi Scholar, Kabir Helminski, gets together with Raghu to discuss Sufi mysticism and his new book, The Mysterion."In Sufism, sincerity would be understood to be something like doing whatever you do for the sake of God; not for anyone's approval, not for ... Show More
59m 23s