Used book – The Gardens of Light, Amin Maalouf

When we use the words "Manichaean" or "Manichaeism," we rarely think of Mani, the 3rd-century Eastern painter, physician, and philosopher, whom the Chinese called "the Buddha of Light" and the Egyptians "the apostle of Jesus."

Far from the sharp and definitive judgments with which he is associated, his tolerant and humanist philosophy aimed to reconcile the religions of his time. It earned him persecution, torture, and hatred. A thousand years later, the accusation of Manichaeism still led the Albigensians to the pyre...

No one better than the author of Leo Africanus, Samarkand (Maisons de la Presse Prize 1988), and The Rock of Tanios (Goncourt Prize 1993), born in a Lebanon torn apart by fanaticism, could tell the story of this existence.