« Elle, la femme la plus puissante d’Égypte, dotée des pouvoirs d’un pharaon, était seule face à la mort. Comme toujours, Néfertiti lutta ; elle trouverait l’énergie nécessaire pour attendre l’homme qu’elle avait vénéré et soutenu, tout au long d’une quête de vingt années, parsemée de combats farouches et d’innovations qui avaient choqué tant d’esprits hostiles. Quelle aventure insensée, que de folies réalisées, que d’enthousiasme offert à une lumière nouvelle ! L’eau frissonna sous l’effet d’un doux vent du nord, ses reflets éblouirent la servante du dieu Aton. Alors, Néfertiti se souvint… » Grâce aux découvertes égyptologiques les plus récentes, Christian Jacq nous transporte au cœur d’une Égypte en pleine mutation, rebâtissant pour nous, au milieu du désert, la cité d’Amarna, nous guidant dans les intrigues que le couple royal dut affronter sa vie durant et redonnant vie à Néfertiti, l’ombre de la lumière, l’ombre d’Akhénaton. L’écrivain français qui a fait lire le monde entier… Christian Jacq a déclaré un jour que son plus grand bonheur était d’écrire au bord du Nil… Beau résumé d’une passion qui l’a envahi très jeune. À vingt et un ans, il entreprend des études d’archéologie et d’égyptologie en Sorbonne. Titulaire d’un doctorat, il choisit de se consacrer à la recherche purement historique, et publie de nombreux essais, dont L’Égypte des grands pharaons en 1981, couronné par l’Académie française.
Author
Christian Jacq is a French author and Egyptologist. He has written several novels about ancient Egypt, notably a five book suite about pharaoh Ramses II, a character whom Jacq admires greatly. Jacq's interest in Egyptology began when he was thirteen, and read History of Ancient Egyptian Civilization by Jacques Pirenne. This inspired him to write his first novel. He first visited Egypt when he was seventeen, went on to study Egyptology and archaeology at the Sorbonne, and is now one of the world's leading Egyptologists. By the time he was eighteen, he had written eight books. His first commercially successful book was Champollion the Egyptian, published in 1987. As of 2004 he has written over fifty books, including several non-fiction books on the subject of Egyptology. He and his wife later founded the Ramses Institute, which is dedicated to creating a photographic description of Egypt for the preservation of endangered archaeological sites. Between 1995-1997, he published his best selling five book suite Ramsès, which is today published in over twenty-five countries. Each volume encompasses one aspect of Ramesses' known historical life, woven into a fictional tapestry of the ancient world for an epic tale of love, life and deceit. Jacq's series describes a vision of the life of the pharaoh: he has two vile power-hungry siblings, Shanaar, his decadent older brother, and Dolora, his corrupted older sister who married his teacher. In his marital life, he first has Isetnofret (Iset) as a mistress (second Great Wife), meets his true love Nefertari (first Great Wife) and after their death, gets married to Maetnefrure in his old age. Jacq gives Ramesses only three biological children: Kha'emweset, Meritamen (she being the only child of Nefertari, the two others being from Iset) and Merneptah. The other "children" are only young officials trained for government and who are nicknamed "sons of the pharaoh".
