Rumi: The Big Red Book: The Great Masterpiece Celebrating Mystical Love and Friendship

by Rumi, Coleman Barks (Translator)

Overview

“Really, what other book would anyone ever need?” —Naomi Shihab Nye, author of Honeybee

“Elegant and exquisite.” —Deepak Chopra, author of Muhammad, Jesus, and Buddha

The Big Red Book is a poetic masterpiece from Jalaluddin Rumi, the medieval Sufi mystic whom Time magazine calls “the most popular poet in America.” Readers continue to be awed and inspired by Rumi’s masterfully lyrical, deeply expressive poems, collected in volumes such as The Illustrated Rumi, The Soul of Rumi, and the bestselling The Essential Rumi. With The Big Red Book, acclaimed poet and Rumi interpreter Coleman Barks offers a never-before-published translation of a crucial anthology of poems widely considered to be one of Persian literature’s greatest treasures.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062020789
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	10/12/2010
Sold by:	HARPERCOLLINS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	512
Sales rank:	202,343
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Coleman Barks is a renowned poet and the bestselling author of The Essential Rumi, Rumi: The Big Red Book, The Soul of Rumi, Rumi: The Book of Love, and The Drowned Book. He was prominently featured in both of Bill Moyers' PBS television series on poetry, The Language of Life and Fooling with Words. He taught English and poetry at the University of Georgia for thirty years, and he now focuses on writing, readings, and performances.

Editorial Reviews

05/01/2014
Any collection of 13th-century Sufi poet Rumi is a good one, but this translation of Rumi's poems to friend and wandering mystic Shams Tabrizi is especially lovely.

Library Journal

Coleman Barks is a pioneer and renown scholar on Rumi, the great Sufi. In his elegant and exquisite way, Coleman has made Rumi as popular as Shakespeare to the world and continues to inspire us with the Rumi’s ecstatic poetry.

Deepak Chopra

Really, what other book would anyone ever need?

Naomi Shihab Nye

Coleman Barks found Rumi floating in some Georgia lake and brought him back to life. What a blessing! Rumi says, ‘Some nights stay up until dawn, as the moon sometimes does for the sun.’ Coleman has stayed up all night, and every reader is grateful.

Robert Bly

Rumi’s Big Red Book tells us: ‘Compassion builds a door, Restlessness cuts a key.’ I am forever grateful to Coleman Barks, restless, yearning to find the bridge from Rumi and Shams to the world we presently inhabit. He is truly to Be Loved for making this ‘transaction with beauty’…

Debra Winger

An emeritus English professor at the University of Georgia, Barks has spent 34 years working on Rumi’s poetry — you could even say that Rumi has been the secret companion musician Barks has danced to.

Los Angeles Times

Without question, we can credit Coleman Barks with making Rumi accessible to American readers through his modernized renditions of the best-known poems of the great Islamic mystic.... Richly sensual yet never flowery, Barks’ language emphasizes Rumi’s embodied spirituality in a book to savor.

Booklist (starred review)

Barks has become internationally renowned for his translations.... Rumi: The Big Red Book is the culmination of his work.

Shambhala Sun