The Gardens of Light explained

The Gardens of Light
Author:Amin Maalouf
Title Orig:Les jardins de lumière
Translator:Dorothy S. Blair
Country:France
Lebanon
Language:French
Publisher:Lattès
Pub Date:1991
English Pub Date:1996
Pages:317
Isbn:2253061778

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 1950s 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."[1]

Kirkus Reviews described the book as a "fine meditative historical novel", "obviously scrupulously researched", "intermittently discursive"", and "suffused with a (nicely translated) dramatic lyricism".[2]

See also

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Guy. David. 1999-03-14. The Gardens of Light. The New York Times. 2012-04-12.
  2. Web site: The Gardens of Light . . 1999-02-01 . 2017-07-27.