8.8 /10 1 Votes
3.8/5 Goodreads Translator Dorothy S. Blair Publisher Lattès Published in English 1996 ISBN 2253061778 Published in english 1996 | 5/5 Foreword Reviews Original title Les jardins de lumière Language French Publication date 1991 Originally published 1991 Page count 317 Country Lebanon | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Gardens of Light (French: Les jardins de lumière) is a 1991 novel by the French-Lebanese writer Amin Maalouf. It focuses on the parthian religious thinker Mani, founder of Manichaeism.
Reception
David Guy wrote in The New York Times: "The Gardens of Light has the feel of a 1950's Hollywood epic, in which men gesture boldly and deliver words that deserve to be immediately carved in stone. ... Maalouf's epic style and wooden characters, as rendered here in Dorothy S. Blair's functional translation from the French, are burdensome. We follow Mani's actions, but we long for an imaginative journey into his inner life, some insight into how his liberal convictions were formed at a time when so much religious belief was marked by extreme factionalism and rigidity."