the shadow of the wind by carlos ruíz zafón

This literary thriller offers chills and many a shocking revelation, as well as a romp through some of Barcelona’s most well-loved streets.

Thus opens the novel of the same title by Spanish writer Carlos Ruiz Zafón. Who is the scarred man? Why is he so bent on the destruction of Carax’s books? And what can Daniel do to guard the memory of its author other than dig deeper into his dangerous past?

Soon enough, a threatening figure begins to hunt down this last remaining copy. Unaware that this book will alter the course of his life in ways he could never have predicted, he takes it and begins to investigate the history of its ill-fated writer, the now forgotten Julián Carax. There, the boy is introduced to the labyrinthine Cemetery of Forgotten Books, where tradition stipulates that first-timers must pick a book and make a vow to protect it from oblivion.įate guides Daniel's eyes towards a beautiful but very rare tome, a novel entitled The Shadow of the Wind. The boy’s father, the owner of a second-hand bookshop, is taking Daniel to a secret library built on the “carcass of a palace” about which he must not breathe a word to anyone. It is a rainy day in the summer of 1945, and the setting is the historical neighbourhood of El Raval, a maze of dark and narrow streets in postwar Barcelona.

The shadow of the wind by carlos ruíz zafón