Dr. Zsuzsanna Gulácsi is Professor of Art History and Asian Studies at Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff and the author of four books and dozens of articles on Manichaean, Buddhist, Eastern Christian, and Jewish codicology, iconography, and materiality of religion. Currently, she is a member of the Institute for Advanced Studies (Spring 2024), working on Manichaean texts and art from the eight and tenth centuries that were discovered together with mostly Buddhist artifacts in East Central Asia at the Turfan Oasis and Mogao Grottos near Dunhuang. 

The Manichaean Prayer and Confession Book is the best-preserved Manichaean manuscript found in the Turfan region and the only one which survives in the form of a bound paper codex from the 9th/10th century. It constitutes a precious treasure-trove of information on its three Iranian languages, on the Manichaean religion itself, and on Manichaean codicology and book-art. Until now this manuscript has been accessible for scholarship only from a 1937 journal article by W. B. Henning, titled ‘Ein manichäisches Bet- und Beichtbuch’ (BBB). This new edition provides the first English translation by Nicholas Sims-Williams, the first codicological study by Zsuzsanna Gulacsi, an introduction by John S. Sheldon, and also includes supplementary Sogdian texts which Henning added to his ‘BBB’.