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The title character Ari could have stepped out of a traditional folk tale straight into the day before yesterday. Son of a monstrous, unscrupulous mother and a faint-hearted father, he catches a glimpse of a life that would be to his liking when he encounters a young woman who .... but you have to read the novel to find out how the rest of Ari's life pans out.

As readers everywhere of the Sufi poet Rumi know, his thought is at once profound and perennially fresh. It is sometimes forgotten, however, by those who rely on translations, that he was a poet most at home in a poetry of constraints. The intention of this book is to give some emphasis to his poetry, particularly his intricate use of rhyme while bearing in mind that, were we to follow Rumi all the way, it might appear artificial. Remembering the constraints of both Persian and English, we have endeavoured to present a Rumi, one of the great lights of a brilliant poetic tradition, in an English that, despite the hazards of translation, comes close to our great forebear, in all his lightness, playfulness, and ineffable joy.