Marble Tears

He sought to conquer death through marble.
Love was his undoing.

June 1631. In the furnace of the Deccan, the Mughal Empire holds its breath.

Grief-stricken by the death of his beloved wife, the mighty Shah Jahan makes a Promethean oath: conquer the void by erecting the greatest white marble wonder the world has ever known.

Yet beneath the immaculate brilliance of this masterpiece lies a machinery of illusion, a bloody logistical excess, and a bankruptcy of state that would lead the monarch to his own downfall.

Why did this mineral eden almost collapse into the mud before ever seeing the light of day?

Michel De Mézières lifts the veil on the human drama and engineering mysteries of history's greatest sanctuary, where one man's grief turned into an eternal manifesto in stone.

About the Author:
Fascinated by the secrets of great empires, Michel De Mézières explores the fragile boundaries between absolute love and destructive madness. His writing, at the crossroads of historical investigation and literary journalism, brings back to life the splendor, tragedy, and mysteries of the builders of eternity.