Official blog of "The sacred alphabet" (SA)

We are many, but not enough. We still need you. Will you help us move mountains? With The Sacred Alphabet we will get it.



A novel of action that will not leave you indifferent.

Mandaeans' videos


These Internet resources I presented to you are very affordable because of an immediate way you can get the documentation you consider more attractive.
It constitutes the first step to approach the Mandaean culture.

-Mandaeans
Beautiful photographic history with old images made over a century ago by pioneering studies Mandaeism, Lady Drower.

While a Mandaean priest reading a sacred text, the announcer tells the BBC in English some of the highlights of this forgotten faith and speaks of the persecution they are subjected in Iraq. It also introduces us to some supporters who tell of their experiences.

This video begins with images on a wedding and a baptism typically Mandaeans. Then, introduces the audience to the realities of the community of Baghdad showing the funeral of a murdered police Mandaean and a child who had been kidnapped and tortured and whose family was forced to flee to Syria. It has a good technical quality.

The BBC has been one that has done most to make known the real situation of panic and terror with which the Mandaeans have to live today.

Report by completing a series of articles published in youtube by the BBC about the situation of the Mandaean community.

This six-minute and a half trailer proclaims the situation who daily suffer the Mandaeans in Iraq, especially following the U.S. invasion. Asked to help out a greater number of Mandaeans have allowed political asylum by the U.S.

-Mandaean and Iraqi cities
This series consists of 4 videos tell us in clear and concise form the way of life and problems of the Mandaean population.

Mandaeans' links


There are many websites dedicate to show us how are the lives and the rites of the Mandaeans. Some of them are created by de own mandaean people but another belongs to historians a teachers.

If you are interested in them, don't hesitate to visit the following sites.

-April of DeConick.
This site belongs to April D. DeConick, professor and historian of early Christian and Jewish thought at the University of Houston (Texas), has its own space dedicated to the Mandaeans with interesting links.

The following links have a special consideration in order to know best to the Mandaean people:
-Wikipedia: Mandaeism.
-Wikipedia: Mandaic alphabet.
-Wikipedia: Mandaic Language.
-Wikipedia: Incantation bowls.

The Mandaean Association of America is an international federation of associations and groups command of the entire world dedicated to representing their rights. Its head office is in Toronto (Canada) and has other subsidiaries in London, Manchester and Stockholm.

For those wishing to enter the reading of Mandaeans, this is the best site.

American site specially dedicated to preserving and protecting the rights of the Mandaean population and to help all refugees.
It is the first attempt to explain in the web the mandaean language and their texts.

Mandaeans' bibliography


The English language has very good study manuals, solvents and clarifiers, on the Gnostic sect of the Mandaeans. From the writings of Lady Drower the middle of last century, to the most innovative professor Jorunn Jacobsen, they all have a great seriousness. Then, I suggest some volumes that could help you learn more about this distinctive religious group that still trying to survive in Iraq and Iran.

-The Mandaeans of Iraq and Iran. Their Cults, Customs, Magic Legends, and Folklore, Ethel Stefana Drower, 2002 (reprinted from the Oxford edition, 1937), Gorgias Press, 540 pages.
Contains a study of all aspects of the life of the Mandaeans of Iran and Iraq. Lady Drower was the first European interest in a scientific manner by the Mandaeans and make them known to the Western world.

-Baptists of Iran, Abbas Tahvildar, out of print, 2000, Tehran-Iran, 174 pages. English and French.
Special high quality photographic work with texts in English and French. Although the images of Abbas Tahvildar about Mandaeans belongs to mandi of Ahwaz (Iran), its rites are virtually identical to those of Iraq.

-Catalog of the Aramaic and Mandaic Incantation Bowls in the British Museum, JB Erica Segal and C.D. Hunter, 2000, British Museum Press, 400 pages.
The collection of Mesopotamian incantation bowls in the British Museum is the second largest in the world (after the Baghdad Museum in Iraq). This catalog provides a transliteration and a translation with commentary of the texts of each of the 142 bowls.

-The Mandaeans Ancient Texts and Modern People, Jorunn Jacobsen Buckley, 2002, Oxford University Press, 216 pages.
One of the most interesting and comprehensive works on Mandaeism.


-The great steam of souls, Jorunn Jacobsen Buckley, 2006, Gorgias Press, 408 pages.
One of the classics studies about mandaean people.

-Mandaeans: The Last Gnostics, Edmondo Lupieri, 2001, Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub, 296 pages.
This book provides a comprehensive introduction to Mandaism telling us their traditional way of life, and introduces readers to the complex world of religious ideas.

-Gnostic Ethics and Mandaean Origins, Edwin M. Yamauchi, 2004, Gorgias Press, 102 pages.
Unlike other researchers (Lady Drower, R. Machuch or K. Rudolph) which match the sources of Mandaeism with the Christian religion, Yamauchi concludes that this Gnostic group arose around the second century AD.

-A Mandaic Dictionary, E.S. Drower and R. Macuch, out of print, 1963, Oxford Clarendon Press (out of print), 491 pages.
To understand the Mandaean language difficult. Explain the meaning of words like Ginza, ganzebra ...

-Gnosis: the Nature and History of Gnosticism, Kurt Rudolph, out of print, 1987, Harper San Francisco, 411 pages.
Examines the Gnostic writings, myths and ideology and debate about the influence of his followers, among them the Mandaeans.

-Mandaeism, Kurt Rudolph, out of print, 1978, Institute of Religious Iconography, State University Groningen, Leiden E. J. Brill, 29 pages.

A conversation with Gemma Nieto

The Holy Alphabet is a fiction novel, in fact falls within what is now called historical thriller, but in reality what does this mean?
Within the publishing industry, is part of as "historical thriller" those novels that have a historical basis, either because they use real people who lived long ago or because they are set in past events.
In the case of The Sacred Alphabet, the historical part refers to the Mandaeans, a religious group very interesting that existed before the coming of Jesus Christ.

Why write about history?
The story has always fascinated me. The people repeated a lots the phrase that "unless we know our past we are condemned to repeat it." I think this sentence is true, particularly with regard to our mistakes, and has been a recurrent theme in my reading. Moreover, history gives much play in creating fiction novels.

But, you not only have read historical novels ...
No, I must admit that I usually read almost any genre and all of them I learn something. It is true that in the past I almost exclusively read historical novels. Authors such as Robert Graves, Mika Waltari, Gisbert Haefs, Gore Vidal and Mary Renault, I was fascinated with their stories. But eventually diversifies. There was a time when science fiction attracted me and I read Orson Scott Card and Arthur G. Clarke, among others, but also Agatha Christie, P. D. James or Patricia D. Cornwell I have been caught with his narrative.

What all these works have influenced to a greater extent on you and your way of telling?
I could not name you a work in particular. All of them somehow have helped me to write as I do. When you read a novel, probably the work as a whole were not exceptional, but discovers that it has discussed the psychology of the characters in a masterly manner, and stay with it. With other work can happen that what attracts you were the plot, the way the author develops the action or suspense ... For example, I wonder Jose Luis Sampedro's treatment of the characters, how they change along the work; and Stephen King, an author diametrically opposed, I admire as he gets to introduce you in their fictions.

What you read is contemporary writers?
Like I said, almost everything. When choosing a book does not discriminate due to their subject, but rather do it on their soil quality. One thing to read everything, and quite another to pretend to enjoy works misspelled.

What is the last thing you read?
Now I am immersed in the documentation of my next novel and I'm reading some works of Michio Kaku on Parallel universes, string theory ... However, the readers must not  frighten, is just the starting point to spin a compelling story, action ...

For your kind of narrative, the action of your plot ... which of all the authors who have read you would have them compare?
I think every writer has his own style, and writing influenced by the readings that they have read but also by the circumstances of their lives, which are those that have defined their characters and attitudes to events. To call someone that "is the spanish Ken Follett" or "French Perez-Reverte" it seems reducing reality to its simplest expression denoting extreme simplicity. Each author takes with him their experiences and their experiences and are not comparable with any other.

After reading The Sacred Alphabet has surprised me how well you know the information circulated on the novel for readers to digest without realizing, how do you get?
Guess it's a fairly arduous process of assimilation. You see, I'm now documented about quantum physics. Obviously I can not write a fictional novel, a fast-paced plot, writing about quarks and quanta. Someone might say: "Quarks!" What's that? ".

The work of an author not only consist to narrate but it also has to dosing, almost in a millimeter, the documentation that offers to his readers. They must understand the issue, but follow the story without getting lost, without going back to reread the page to read it for lack of compression. This is accomplished when the author has digested the information that is part of the novel and when to display it on the work it does with small doses and in a way that is easy for a layman.

Your academic training has helped you to achieve that?
I think so. I'm a journalist, and one of the things they teach you very well in university is to document yourself. If your broad field of action and not only looking for literature, if you also throw the work of "field", you get a broad perspective of the topic you have to deal. Basically, the job of writing a novel begins with the search for documentation, an analysis and summary, and concludes with how to translate that into fiction.

Also feels that writing an article or a story is telling a story, as in novels, to communicate something to the reader in an attractive way with a beginning, a middle and an ending, only with fewer words. Journalism is a good starting point if you want to be a writer.

Tell me about your upcoming projects. I've said that you have a new novel in mind. Can you pass something?
Rather little, and it is not superstition. Although many writers prefer not to tell if their projects are "gafan" is not my case. It is simply that the work is still in its infancy. I've barely begun to know where the plot and I will not even have well-shaped characters. Ask me earlier this year, maybe by then more data may bring.

I know it is a risky question but, do you think that The Sacred Alphabet will be a bestseller?
(Laughter) I agree with you that the question is a bit risky, and who knows what will happen to The Sacred Alphabet, but I can confirm you that the publisher is currently stationed topics very strong from the start and she rarely do all the work. Furthermore, the reception given the first edition pre-sale has been spectacular. Even I could not believe it myself, and for the opinions of the readers who have already read, I can confirm you that history is enjoying it.

To round off this interview, do you wish to add anything?
Let me use this occasion to send to all the readers a greeting from here and give them my heartfelt thanks for the encouraging words that they dedicate me. Thank all of you.

"The Power of Sounds" I, official book-trailer

First official book-trailer of the four that make up the promotional campaign for the novel The Sacred Alphabet.

To see it without cuts, it is best to let him down and then watch it at once.


This video, along with three others, who created, produced, filmed, mounted, ... in short, everything I've done. For better or for worse. I just hope that you like it. And please, keep in mind that they are the first that I do. I would love to hear your criticisms to improve them, so write me with your opinions.

Gemma Nietos' Biography


Gemma Nieto was born in 1971, she graduated in Journalism and she has studied Marketing and Public Relations.

Began her first professional steps as political editor for various local weeklies and the following occupations did opt definitively for the press.

In the nineties he founded and directed Transit, Tourism and Transport, a publication distributed by airlines to spend the next decade dedicated to The Dental Gazette, a leading journal in its field, which handled PR work and public relations.

Despite having made journalism their life, his true vocation was the novel. Something that was clear from very young and today she is dedicated solely to writing.

Novel's presentation in Spain


On September 8th was presented to the press the novel of fiction The Sacred Alphabet written by Gemma Nieto. The reunion took place at the Aladdin restaurant in Madrid, and consisted of a meal where the assistants could enjoy the culinary delights of Mazin, so well known to develop the falafel, the cous cous ...

Attended by representatives from the major media in the country, the author was able to fully discuss the Mandaeans and begin to make them known in Spain as she wished. The assembled journalists were very interested by this Gnostic group that still lives and the difficulties being experienced at present.

It was a nice meeting in which the author, Gemma Nieto, told us some of his interesting legends, like the alphabet, through which the novel was titled The Sacred Alphabet.

For the Mandaeans, their alphabet is magical and sacred, hence, although they communicate among themselves with Mandaean, but priests use a language much earlier, the Mandaean known as classic, which only they can understand. It is the alphabet in which their holy books are written, the entity that is the Ginza, which means treasure.

They also use the letters of their alphabet to write spells and incantations in small bowls that are like bowls of soup do in order to ward off the demons of the houses to stop peaceful families living inside. One of these bowls is the demon-traps used in the novel as a theme throughout the plot.


The Mandaeans are rooted in antiquity dating back to Egyptian times and lived in Jerusalem during the first century AD, when John the Baptist preaching in the Jordan River. They claim they knew him and that part of their liturgy is imbued with his spirit. In fact, he became his fourth and final prophet, and say to him who came to earth to heal the sick and raise the dead. Almost all of the Christian tradition attributes to Jesus, except the divinity, the Mandaeans are those granted to the prophet John.

The Sacred Alphabet uses its rites and customs to take the reader by the hand in a work of thrilling action can not stop reading. However, quite unlike other works of this type, Nieto Gemma's novel is well grounded in a solid documentation that led him to gather more than two years. All the scenarios mentioned in the book are true and it is very difficult to separate fiction from reality because sometimes the novel becomes more credible that the same reality.

This is a work that absorbs the reader from the outset and not allowed to leave the reading to the end, a novel in which the action is perfectly dosed and the plots are intertwined with such mastery that the only thing that the reader can make is ... read.

"I sincerely hope that you enjoy, as we have done all those who have read it."

Help us to change things and we will move mountains

We are many, but not enough. We still need you.

Will you help us move mountains?

With The Sacred Alphabeth we will get it.




For further information:
gemma@gemmanieto.com