The events of this historical novel take place in the second half of the 18th century. First of all, it is a journey through the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, where peoples, religions, and cultures are intertwined. This is the story of the charismatic self-proclaimed messiah Jakub Franko, told by his associates and documented in court reports, ridiculed by his enemies.

According to a survey by Gazeta Wyborcza, Polish readers recognized this novel as the best book of the first quarter of the 21st century. At the time of the Belarusian edition, the work had been translated into fifteen languages, and the number of its readers in Poland alone exceeded half a million. Undoubtedly, this is one of the most important works of modern Polish literature, which strengthened the author's position among the outstanding creators of world literature and contributed to the awarding of the Nobel Prize in Literature to Olga Tokarczuk in 2018.