Retold in award-winning writer Kamla K. Kapur’s elegant, flowing language, Rumi’s tales of wisdom and humanity are given fresh life in this modern masterpiece.
Rumi: Tales of the Spirit is a sweet, comforting, and at times, fiery guide to nourishing the spirit. In a hopeful but pragmatic tone, timeless storyteller Rumi and award-winning author and playwright Kamla Kapur guide us through the trials of life and teach us to embrace suffering, to pray even when it feels hopeless, and ultimately, to surrender to the cosmic will. In twelve fresh and powerful tales of wisdom, we learn to trust in ourselves and in the universe, experience joy in good times and bad, and find the strength to persevere through life’s struggles.
Kapur has been studying Rumi for twenty years. Through her detailed analysis of his life and work and her own understanding of the human condition and the present-day literary scene, Kapur brings new life to these centuries-old stories while staying true to their roots in Rumi’s time and place. These retellings convey Rumi’s deep insight on the human condition and bring to light the vast and subtle meanings of his stories that are often lost in translation. Through this work, we see that people around the world and across time have always been connected by the hopes, dreams, and inner struggles that make up the human experience.
Personal, poignant, and woven with fierce passion for life and the divine, Rumi: Tales of the Spirit will leave you with heart-wrenching gratitude for life’s trials and gifts.
"Kamla has written an amazing book [in which] she shares Rumi's untold stories combined with her own rich perspective-expanding commentaries, making them highly relevant to all of us, opening doors and windows in our minds through which we can glimpse a different, lighter, more joyous way of being and living."
"Rumi's never-before-told stories coupled with Kamla Kapur's deep wisdom about the journey from suffering to peace provide us with an elegant road map."
“This marvelous work of a thirteenth-century religious visionary is a cosmic road map that teaches us, among many things, how to cleverly embrace suffering and thereby harness our inner demons, the better to find our better angels. Here we learn that from them both come self-knowledge, joy, gratitude, fearlessness, and ultimately survival and triumph. Kamla Kapur helpfully holds our hand on the journey. The miraculous insight is—it works.”
“Kapur’s style of writing is elegant, her analysis of characters and symbols in the stories is insightful, and she shows a personal intimacy with the parables and the poetry. The result is, as the title of the book says, Rumi’s stories to live by—to live by the Spirit.”
