About the Book
"What if the real threat to democracy wasn't violence-but our refusal to confront it?"
In a time when Europe is fractured by self-doubt and paralyzed by decades of moral concessions, The Price of Blindness delivers a gripping, uncompromising literary response to the crisis many refuse to name: the rise of radical Islamism, and the cultural fault lines it reveals in the heart of Western societies.
Set in a fictionalized but terrifyingly plausible France, the novel confronts a reality long obscured by euphemisms and fear: the slow, methodical infiltration of extremist networks, the transformation of certain neighborhoods into ideological strongholds, and the growing gap between the elite discourse and the lived experience of ordinary citizens.
But this is not a pamphlet. It is a novel of political awakening, personal risk, and historical rupture.
A Nation at a Crossroads
The Price of Blindness y explores the critical choice facing modern democracies: maintain the status quo of denial and appeasement-or confront head-on the enemies of liberty, even at great cost.
Through the voices of elected leaders, security officials, reformers, and ordinary citizens, the novel paints a portrait of a country where nothing works as before. Institutions hesitate. Communities fracture. Language becomes fragile. Every word is suspect. Every silence, complicit.
At the center of the narrative stands a government faced with an existential dilemma: how to restore order, protect the rule of law, and preserve national unity without betraying the values it claims to defend.
Europe Is Watching
As France wrestles with its ghosts, the rest of Europe follows-sometimes in support, sometimes in fear, always with unease. The novel captures the geopolitical echo chamber: media manipulation, ideological backlash, international pressure, and the deep ambivalence of neighboring states. What begins as a national crisis reveals itself as a continental fracture.
The Price of Blindness raises hard questions that transcend borders:
Can a liberal democracy survive without limits?
What happens when tolerance enables its own undoing?
Is it still possible to say "no"-and mean it?
A Necessary Novel for a Dangerous Time
Refusing both fatalism and fanaticism, The Price of Blindness offers no easy answers-only the certainty that refusing to choose is, in itself, a choice. One that history will judge harshly.
This is a story for readers who feel the ground shifting beneath their feet. For those who believe that literature still has a role to play in the great questions of our age. And for those who sense that the real war is not only fought with weapons-but with words, with silence, and with the courage to see clearly.
"The Price of Blindness" is not just a novel. It's a warning.
And perhaps, a last chance.
About the Author :
À propos de l'auteur
Richard Mahanna est un auteur franco-syrien, profondément marqué par les mystères du vivant, la fragilité de l'humain, et le dialogue silencieux entre l'homme et la nature. Médecin de formation, il a exercé de nombreuses années dans un monde gouverné par les faits, la rigueur scientifique, le langage rationnel. Jusqu'au jour où un cheval - Graal - est venu bouleverser ses certitudes et réveiller en lui une autre forme de vérité celle que l'on ne comprend pas, mais que l'on ressent.
Graal, le murmure du silence est son récit le plus intime. Inspiré d'une histoire réelle, il marque un tournant dans sa trajectoire d'écrivain. Une plongée au coeur de ce que la vie peut offrir de plus nu: la relation sans mots, la présence sans attente, l'amour sans possession.
Richard Mahanna est aussi l'auteur de plusieurs romans engagés, profonds et souvent visionnaires, parmi lesquels:
- Destin Mosaïque (également publié en espagnol sous le titre Destino Mosaico),
- Entre deux extrêmes,
- L'avenir nous le dira,
- Le Prix de l'aveuglement, traduit en anglais sous le titre The High Price of Denial.
Chacun de ses livres explore, à sa manière, les zones d'ombre et de lumière de notre humanité nos peurs, nos illusions, nos élans de beauté, notre besoin d'appartenir, mais aussi de nous libérer. Son écriture, à la fois poétique et ancrée, cherche à ouvrir des espaces de réflexion - et surtout, d'émotion.
Aujourd'hui, Richard partage sa vie entre les mots, les prés, et le silence habité de ceux qui n'ont pas besoin de parler pour être entendus. Il écrit comme il respire: pour comprendre, pour relier, pour laisser une trace... ou pour simplement s'effacer devant ce qui nous dépasse.
