Biography
Daniel Ladinsky is an American poet and interpreter of mystical poetry known for his graceful “renderings” of works by Hafiz, Rumi and other poet-saints of the East and the West. Hafiz, a 14th century Persian Sufi poet and a mischievous spiritual rebel, inspired six of Ladinsky’s lively best-selling books, including I Heard God Laughing. He began to write his poetic interpretations in the early 1990s, inspired by a spiritual teacher he met during six years of living in western India. Asked about his work’s popularity Ladinsky says, “The beautiful, sacred, and vital truths won’t die.” Particularly for the young, he adds, the wisdom of Hafiz can have a great effect, to “safeguard them and point them in the right direction.” Ladinsky lives next to the Meher Spiritual Centre in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, at a wilderness farm in the Ozarks of Missouri, and at a ranch outside of Taos, New Mexico.