Love’s Alchemy: Poems from the Sufi Tradition

Available through your local bookseller or through Amazon

About the Book

The thirteenth-century poet Rumi is just one voice in the poetry of Sufism, the timeless Persian mystical tradition. The poems and epigrams collected in Love’s Alchemy represent all the major poets of this magnificent lineage, including Rumi. While many recent bestsellers have been interpretations based on earlier English translations, David and Sabrineh Fideler work directly from the original Persian sources.

This book offers faithful yet elegant translations of the best poems written in ruba‘i form: concise, tightly focused meditations that span only four lines but reveal worlds of meaning. The poems explore many aspects of human life and the spiritual path, but they center on the liberating power of love. Also included are an extensive introduction, a glossary, and notes that place these wonderful poems in cultural, historical, and religious context.

Featuring 170 translations from 80 different authors, Love’s Alchemy is one of the most comprehensive collections of Sufi poetry to appear in English; it represents a beautiful and reliable introduction to the tradition, ideas, and forms of Persian mystical poetry.

Love’s Alchemy: Poems from the Sufi Tradition. Published by New World Library. Hardcover, xix + 215 pages, ISBN 1-57731-535-9, $18.00.


Interview on Rumi and the Tradition of Sufi Poetry. Most people learn about Sufi poetry through the writings of Rumi, but Rumi is only one voice in this magnificent tradition that spans a thousand years. In this interview, David Fideler discuses what it is that makes Rumi popular, the wider tradition of Sufi poetry, and what message the Sufi poets have for us today.



Advance Praise for Love’s Alchemy

“I have appreciated the highly original, solid, and beautiful work of David Fideler for many years. Love’s Alchemy could come only from his wide knowledge and sense of aesthetics. In its musical words, the Sufi poets paint a delicate word-bridge between the earthly and the spiritual, and they charm us, wakening the human urge to transcend ourselves.”

— Thomas Moore
Author of Care of the Soul and Dark Nights of the Soul


“Love’s Alchemy takes us into the tavern of mystical love, full of intoxicating treasures of Sufi poetry. Here are the masters of love, Rumi amongst them, whose words speak directly to the soul. With beauty and wisdom they teach us the truth of our eternal nature, and how the heart opens to God. Treasure these poems and allow them to nourish the secret and hidden parts of your innermost being.”

— Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, PhD, author of
Sufism, the Transformation of the Heart


“Love’s Alchemy is a delightful and absorbing collection of translations from the major Persian Sufi poets. David and Sabrineh Fideler have provided authentic interpretations of these mystical texts in memorable form. Lovers of Rumi will be pleased to find so many other great authors from this tradition.”

 — Carl W. Ernst, Zachary Smith Professor
Department of Religious Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill


“This is how Sufis themselves teach Sufism: through poetry as alchemy. And these translations are indeed transmutations, changing the gold of Persian in the gold of English.”

— Peter Lamborn Wilson, author of
Sacred Drift: Essays on the Margins of Islam


“This is a gem of a book. David Fideler and Sabrineh Fideler have crafted an enticing introduction to some of the greatest mystical poets of Sufism. Highly recommended.”

— Jay Kinney, editor of The Inner West



About the Translators

David Fideler has worked as an editor, publisher, college professor, and the program director of a humanities center. He gives presentations on Sufi poetry and holds a PhD in philosophy and cultural studies.

Sabrineh Fideler was born in Tehran and holds a degree in English to Persian translation from Azad University. She has translated several books from English into Persian — all books on languages.

David and Sabrineh currently live in West Michigan.