The Shadow of the Wind

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

In postwar Barcelona, ten-year-old Daniel Sempere is taken by his widowed father to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, a hidden labyrinth where abandoned books are preserved. Following tradition, Daniel adopts a novel titled The Shadow of the Wind by the unknown Julián Carax. He reads it in a single night and becomes obsessed with its story of a man searching for his true father amid cursed love and loss. Daniel’s father, a workseller, cannot identify Carax or find any other works by him. At the café Els Quatre Gats, the antiquarian Gustavo Barceló tries to buy Daniel’s copy, then invites him to the Ateneo library to learn what he knows. There Daniel meets Barceló’s blind niece, Clara, and immediately falls in love with her. Clara explains that she first encountered Carax through The Red House, a dark novel discovered by her former tutor, Monsieur Roquefort. Carax’s books were poorly published, ignored by critics, and became almost impossible to find. Rumors say that someone searches out every surviving copy only to burn it. Clara tells Daniel of her own family’s suffering during the Civil War: her father vanished after being imprisoned in Montjuïc Castle, and she later learned that Inspector Javier Fumero had killed him. Daniel begins reading The Shadow of the Wind aloud to Clara, and their friendship becomes central to his adolescence. They share books, walks, and confidences, while Daniel’s devotion grows into painful, unreturned desire. Clara describes a frightening stranger who questions her about Daniel and Barceló and seems to wear a leather mask. On Daniel’s sixteenth birthday, Clara fails to attend his party. Hurt and furious, Daniel encounters a limping stranger in the harbor who knows his name, knows about Clara, and demands The Shadow of the Wind. The man smells of burned paper and claims to collect Carax’s books only to destroy them. When he reveals a face ruined by fire, Daniel recognizes him as the terrifying figure from Carax’s novel, Laín Coubert, the devil. Fearing for Clara, Daniel races to her apartment during a storm, intending to take back the book. Instead, he finds Clara in bed with her music teacher, Adrián Neri. Neri beats Daniel, expels him, and takes the keys to the apartment. Afterward Daniel meets Fermín Romero de Torres, a destitute, talkative man who comforts him. Daniel hides The Shadow of the Wind in the Cemetery of Forgotten Books. Isaac, its keeper, explains that Carax’s publisher once issued eight of his novels, but a man called Coubert attempted to buy the remaining stock and then apparently caused the warehouse to burn. Isaac’s daughter Nuria, who had corresponded with Carax and may have loved him, rescued one copy of each book and hid them in the Cemetery. Isaac adds that Carax’s father was Antoni Fortuny, owner of a hat shop, while Carax was his mother’s surname. Daniel and his father later rescue Fermín from life on the streets, bathe and clothe him, and employ him in the bookshop. Fermín proves an ingenious bibliographic detective, though he is haunted by torture scars and terrified of Inspector Fumero. Fumero eventually visits the shop, threatens Daniel, denounces Fermín as a criminal, and warns that anyone associated with him will suffer. As Daniel renews his friendship with Tomás Aguilar, he unexpectedly becomes closer to Tomás’s sister, Beatriz. Meanwhile, an intruder leaves a burned photograph in the bookshop showing a young Julián Carax with a girl outside the Fortuny hat shop. Daniel investigates the ruined shop and learns from its caretaker, Doña Aurora, that Julián’s father falsely claimed his son had died after leaving for Paris. She remembers Julián as a gifted, morbid child who told stories and was befriended by a wealthy boy from the Aldaya family. Inside the abandoned Fortuny apartment, Daniel finds evidence of Antoni Fortuny’s religious obsession and violence: crucifixes cover Julián’s locked childhood room, whose notebooks contain drawings, fragments, and visions resembling Carax’s later fiction. Daniel discovers a photograph of the girl in a grand garden before the villa called The White Friar; its inscription reads, “Penélope, who loves you.” He also takes an old letter addressed to Julián. Further inquiry reveals the history of Carax’s parents. Sophie Carax, a French piano teacher, married Antoni Fortuny, but soon announced she was pregnant by another man. Fortuny brutally beat her, treated Julián as the devil’s child, and filled their home with crosses. Julián grew up drawn to music, art, books, sinister stories, and fantasy, while his mother endured isolation and abuse. Daniel reads Penélope Aldaya’s 1919 letter to Julián. She writes that he left Barcelona believing she betrayed him, though she loved him and was being confined by her family. Her brother Jorge had sworn to kill Julián, and she begs him to understand that she never stopped loving him. The excerpt ends as Daniel, sleepless and absorbed by Penélope’s words, leaves home at dawn.

By Carlos Ruiz Zafón · First published 2001 · Genre: Mystery, Historical Fiction, Gothic Fiction · 60 chapters · 194,147 words

First lines

I STILL REMEMBER THE DAY MY FATHER TOOK ME TO THE CEMETERY OF Forgotten Books for the first time. It was the early summer of 1945, and we walked through the streets of a Barcelona trapped beneath ashen skies as dawn poured over Rambla de Santa Mónica in a wreath of liquid copper.

"Daniel, you mustn't tell anyone what you're about to see today," my father warned. "Not even your friend Tomás. No one."

Genres

Tags

historical fiction · mystery · gothic fiction · literary fiction · postwar Barcelona · Spanish Civil War aftermath · coming-of-age · bookish · metafiction · romance · family secrets · revenge

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The Shadow of the Wind is listed on Textopian as a novel by Carlos Ruiz Zafón, dated 2001 CE.

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