L'Affamé

"He wasn't me. I wasn't him. And yet he was entirely under my command. I was all in his blood."In the 13th century, while Persia was suffering under Mongols’ assaults, the mystic Shams of Tabriz (1185-1248) set off in search of somebody who would be both his master and his disciple. After years of unsuccessful search, he reaches Konya in Anatolia and finds Mowlana, a man praised for his teaching and his majesty but a prisoner of his fame. Shams will be his liberator. Through their meeting and then their separation, Mowlana will become one of the most vertiginous poets of world literature, whom we know today as Rumi.In this striking and poetic book, author Nahal Tajadod uses Shams’ own words — drawing from his Maqalat, a huge and rather disordered collection of sayings — and adds to it descriptions by the great medieval geographer Ibn Battuta and poetic episodes from the Persian poet Attar. A vivid and unique dive in the life of a remarkable man. Born in Tehran, Nahal Tajadod has lived in France since 1977. A specialist in Buddhism, Iranian Christianity and the poet Rûmi, she has published several essays including Roumi le brûlé (2004), Sur les pas de Roumi (2006) and Les Porteurs de Lumière (2008). She has also written several novels, Les Simples Prétextes du bonheur (2016), Elle joue (2012), and two autobiographical works, Passeport à l'iranienne (2007) and Debout sur la terre (2010).Jean-Claude Carrière is a writer, scriptwriter and director, world-famous for his stage and film adaptations of the world literary heritage: The Unbearable Lightness of Being, The Mahabharata, Dangerous Liaisons, The Return of Martin Guerre, The Valladolid debate, Cyrano de Bergerac, The Horseman on the Roof. Jean-Claude Carrière has collaborated with the greatest ones: Milos Forman, Luis Buñuel, Jean-Luc Godard, Louis Malle, Peter Brook.