The poet Rumi speaks to us from the 13th Century but he is the best-selling poet in America. Biographer Brad Gooch reveals that he traveled 2500 miles to trace Rumi's footsteps, learned Persian and spent eight years to write Rumi's Secret: The Life of the Sufi Poet of Love. In his late 30s, Rumi met Shamz of Tabriz, a 60-year old wanderer who transformed his life and inspired the love poems we are still reading today. According to Gooch, the fluidity of their relationship was uncannily modern – were they teacher and student, friend and companion, or lover and beloved?
Read an excerpt from Rumi's Secret.