Mevlânâ Celâleddîn Rumi is considered the foremost mystical Persian poet of Love and is the best-selling poet in the United States. This is first of four volumes of his quatrains (rubaiyat) translated by Nevit O. Ergin. Although selections of Ergin's translations of the quatrains have been published before, this is the first time Ergin's translations of all 1,867 rubaiyat will have ever been published in English only. Ergin's English translations are based on Turkish translations from the Turkish scholar, Abdülbakî Gölpinarli, who translated the original Farsi compilation housed in the Mevlânâ (Rumi) Museum in Konya, Turkey, numbered 68 and 69. Ergin does not translate word-by-word, but rather, catches the true essence of Rumi, and a group of international lovers of Rumi and his poetry have worked on this Rumi project for more than seven years. Volume 1 contains the first 466 of the 1,867 quatrains. For more information about Ergin and the project, visit ReadingRumi.com.
