THE SHADOW OF THE WIND

Carlos Ruiz Zafón, Phoenix Fiction, US$13.80

Carlos Ruiz Zafón’s The Shadow of the Wind tells the story of a boy who encounters a book, one so powerful that it threatens to destroy everything and everyone he loves. The book consumes 10-year-old Daniel Sempere’s entire life.

The story takes place in Barcelona, Spain, during the late 1940s and early 1950s. Daniel’s widowed father, a secondhand bookseller, takes him early one summer morning to a secret place, the Cemetery of Forgotten Books. Following tradition, Daniel chooses one book to take away with him, which is of course, The Shadow of the Wind.

Although Zafón only gives a sketchy plot of the novel, the boy is so fascinated with it, he decides to go on a search to discover more about the author, Julian Carax, who seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth. Persevering, Daniel discovers that other volumes of his hero’s books have disappeared due to a mysterious stranger determined to burn the last remaining few. Plunging deeper into the mystery, he encounters a number of just as mysterious characters.

This coming-of-age story is written in excellent prose. Zafón has a talent for sustaining suspense and creating atmosphere, particularly Spain, and Barcelona just after the Second World War. There are many twists and turns in Daniel’s quest, and the reader is sufficiently kept on edge turning page after page till the inevitable ending.

First published in Spain in 2001 as La Sombra del Viento, it was an instant best-seller that the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports provided financial support to enlist the services of English translator Lucia Graves. Thanks to her skills, nothing was lost in translation.

Margie T Logarta