It all begins with a phone call from the Vatican — and in 2022, a famous writer embarks on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Bethlehem, Nazareth, Capernaum, and finally, Jerusalem — a city that tests the mind and feelings, defies logic, and denies any possibility of true understanding. Here, the writer's eyes are opened. For a person who believes intellectually, used to reasoning, fantasizing, questioning, and doubting, this experience of unimaginable strength is to confront a pure mystical experience, overwhelming and leaving no room for skepticism. The revelation transforms his life and irreversibly reshapes his worldview. Henceforth, the story of Jesus for the traveler is a true and eternally modern drama of a real and forever living man, while the history of the three major religions that took root in Jerusalem is an inexhaustible source of pain and hope. Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt is a globally popular writer, playwright, director, and filmmaker, a member of the Academy Goncourt and a laureate of prestigious awards. His books have been translated into about fifty languages, and in France, they are published annually with a total circulation of half a million copies. His plays are performed on stages in about fifty countries. His novel "Oscar and the Pink Lady" has changed the lives of many readers — alongside the Bible, "The Little Prince," and "The Three Musketeers." After the book "Night of Fire," in which Schmitt described the revelation he experienced in the African desert, in "The Trial of Jerusalem," he again returns to the roots and embarks on a journey through the Holy Land — a country steeped in the spiritual experience of many generations, generously sharing it with anyone who has the courage and openness to receive it. And Schmitt sincerely and generously shares with us. For the first time in Russian — and with a foreword by the author, written especially for the Russian reader.
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