The Masnavi of Rumi, Book One

‘This new verse translation of the Masnavi, the mystical masterpiece of the greatest and best-loved of Persian poets, Jalaloddin Rumi, is a literary event of the first importance. Alan Williams has made it his principal life’s work to present the profound spirituality of this towering poet of peerless spiritual and psychological insight – a poet for the ages and for all people – in a form that is accessible to readers of today.’ * Carole Hillenbrand, Emeritus Professor, University of Edinburgh, UK *
In mid-thirteenth century, as the Mongol hordes were destroying the fabled city of Baghdad, in the small city of Konya to the northwest Rumi was erecting a world of mystical vision in words whose amazing architectonics and blinding beauty would prove hard to imagine and harder to grasp with any sense of immediacy. In Alan Williams' English translation of the Spiritual Couplets, we finally stand a chance not only to access that vision in all its inner glory and eternal grandeur, but ultimately to gain an immediate sense of its graceful relevance not just to our time but to all of humanity through the millennia. * Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak, author of Recasting Persian Poetry *
Alan Williams brings us an English version of that epic spiritual masterpiece which is both reliable and fluently readable. The Introduction provides an indispensable key to the Masnavi’s sudden, bewildering shifts between multiple dramatic voices and perspectives, the distinctive feature which makes this poem, for every reader, “the mirror of our innermost state.” * Professor James W. Morris, Boston College, USA *
While maintaining the Persian flavour of Rumi’s epic and lyric virtuosities, this superior translation by Alan Williams brings Rumi fully to life in English. Professor Williams combines his erudition and sophistication as a scholar with his poetic flair, to do justice to Rumi’s sublime poetry for a modern readership. * Ali-Asghar Seyed-Ghorab, Associate Professor of Persian, Leiden University, The Netherlands *
The Masnavi’s new English translation is the publishing event of the year. At the hands of Alan Williams, Rumi’s “cumulative polyphony” resembles a Shakespeare play where the poet speaks ‘in one character after another . . .’ This monumental poem’s opening couplet, among the most captivating ever written, fills my heart with sadness every time I read it: “Listen to this reed as it is grieving, / it tells the story of our separations”. Who could stop listening to this music after hearing these first notes? * Kaya Genc, author of The Lion and the Nightingale *