The Forty Rules of Love: A Novel of Rumi About the Author Elif Shafak, an award-winning, bestselling novelist and the most widely read female writer in Turkey, is the author of The Gaze and The Saint of Incipient Insanities.Laural Merlington has recorded well over one hundred audiobooks, including works by Margaret Atwood and Alice Hoffman, and is the recipient of several AudioFile Earphones Awards. An Audie Award nominee, she has also directed over one hundred audiobooks.