The Shadow of the Wind
Barcelona in the fog, a cemetery of forgotten books, and a mystery that spans decades. Zafon wrote a love letter to stories and it is absolutely irresistible.
The Cemetery of Forgotten Books
Carlos Ruiz Zafon's 2001 debut novel set in Barcelona begins when a young boy named Daniel is taken by his bookseller father to a secret library called the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, where every visitor must choose one book to protect. Daniel chooses The Shadow of the Wind by Julian Carax, and becomes obsessed with the life of its mysteriously ruined author. His investigation draws him into a labyrinth of postwar Barcelona, lost love, a villain who burns every copy of Carax's books, and a story that mirrors his own. The novel spent a decade on bestseller lists around the world and is the best-selling Spanish novel since Don Quixote.
Reading The Shadow of the Wind
Mystery
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Chapter
"Every book, every volume you see here, has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it and of those who read it.
"Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Zafon spent ten years writing The Shadow of the Wind while working as an advertising copywriter in Los Angeles. After publication it took years to reach international audiences because it was published first only in Spanish.
The novel was rejected by multiple Spanish publishers before being accepted. It eventually sold over 15 million copies in 40 languages and won numerous international prizes. Zafon called Barcelona his true protagonist.