Gone With The Wind

Spain's Carlos Ruiz Zafón's charming novel La sombra del viento (The Shadow of the Wind) has become a surprise bestseller worldwide and is now a B&N Discover New Writers pick.

Since 2001, your novel has sold 350,000 hardcover copies in Spain with little promotion, and 250,000 in Germany in just six months. With the Penguin release in English, your sales are bound to triple. What do you gather has kept the momentum building?

It's all about the reading experience. About what happens in the readers' minds once they slide their eyes across the first words of this novel and become entrapped. This is a novel that for three years has captured the hearts and imaginations of many readers in a number of countries, and it has been them, their word of mouth and enthusiasm that have made it a success. There are no promotional or commercial gimmicks. It seems like this is a novel that makes seasoned readers fall back in love with the joy of books, and makes new readers of those who have lost their faith in the power and joy of literature.

In the past, you've had success writing books for young adults. Tell us what type of reader would be attracted to this novel and whom you consider to be your literary equivalents or contemporaries?

I write for somebody like myself. Someone who loves reading, who loves stories, who wants to plunge into a universe of intrigue, romance, adventure, mystery, and humor. I aspire to reach readers who are very demanding with their fiction, who want to be enthralled, seduced, stimulated, bewitched, and, ultimately, transported to that wonderful place that only fiction can take us. This is the promise that lies in the shadow, or in your soul. From what readers say, this is a novel for those who loved works as diverse as Perfume, The Name of the Rose, The Alienist, or the fiction of Borges, García Márquez, and the great novels of the 19th century.

In many of your books you've explored antique and mysterious settings and cities. What draws you to this theme?

I am very interested in history, and especially the history of cities. I believe cities are the greatest canvas of humanity, and I also believe history provides us with the clues to the greatest stories. In La sombra del viento, I wanted to bring the reader into the city I was born and raised in, a Dickensian Barcelona, a great and mysterious enchantress of a city, the metropolis of Gaudí, a gothic art nouveau labyrinth of intrigue, beauty, and human drama. Cities are grand novels written in the language of architecture and secrets, and this enigmatic Barcelona awaiting to engulf the reader is the greatest "storypolis" ever written. Trust the locals.

Editor's Note: La sombra del viento (Planeta) was reviewed in the May/June 2002 issue of Críticas. The English translation, The Shadow of the Wind, is currently available from Penguin.