" Every book, every volume you see here, has a soul."
June 20, 2020 3:47 AM Subscribe
Carlos Ruiz Zafón, author of The Shadow of the Wind, has died. He was 55.
Ruiz Zafón (Wikipedia) was born in 1964 in Barcelona, Spain. He wrote his most famous novel, La Sombra Del Viento, The Shadow of the Wind, in 2001 after he had moved to Los Angeles. That novel was followed by three others in the series, El Juego del Angel (The Angel's Game), El Prisionero del Cielo (The Prisoner of Heaven), and El Laberinto De Los Espiritus ( The Labyrinth of Spirits).
The Shadow of the Wind "follows Daniel, a young boy in Barcelona just after World War II, whose father takes him to The Cemetery of Lost Books, a mysterious bookstore at the heart of the city. He chooses a book from the shelves, a novel also called The Shadow of the Wind. And as he grows up, he realizes that sinister forces are interested in the book, and in destroying everything ever written by its author."
Here is the Guardian article on his death.
NPR appreciation.
"I write for a living. I've been writing and making stuff up to make ends meet since I left school. "
Books hold no passport – Carlos Ruiz Zafón discusses The Shadow of the Wind.
Ruiz Zafón (Wikipedia) was born in 1964 in Barcelona, Spain. He wrote his most famous novel, La Sombra Del Viento, The Shadow of the Wind, in 2001 after he had moved to Los Angeles. That novel was followed by three others in the series, El Juego del Angel (The Angel's Game), El Prisionero del Cielo (The Prisoner of Heaven), and El Laberinto De Los Espiritus ( The Labyrinth of Spirits).
The Shadow of the Wind "follows Daniel, a young boy in Barcelona just after World War II, whose father takes him to The Cemetery of Lost Books, a mysterious bookstore at the heart of the city. He chooses a book from the shelves, a novel also called The Shadow of the Wind. And as he grows up, he realizes that sinister forces are interested in the book, and in destroying everything ever written by its author."
Here is the Guardian article on his death.
NPR appreciation.
"I write for a living. I've been writing and making stuff up to make ends meet since I left school. "
Books hold no passport – Carlos Ruiz Zafón discusses The Shadow of the Wind.
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posted by unicorn chaser at 4:19 AM on June 20, 2020
posted by unicorn chaser at 4:19 AM on June 20, 2020
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posted by theBigRedKittyPurrs at 5:03 AM on June 20, 2020
posted by theBigRedKittyPurrs at 5:03 AM on June 20, 2020
I absolutely loved Shadow of the Wind. A friend just gave it to me once. I hope I can just up and give it to someone one day too.
posted by Ms. Moonlight at 5:09 AM on June 20, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Ms. Moonlight at 5:09 AM on June 20, 2020 [1 favorite]
Obituary in El Pais
Con el mismo inopinado fogonazo con el que irrumpió en el panorama editorial con su ya referencial La sombra del viento, Carlos Ruiz Zafón, quizá el escritor español contemporáneo más homologable en el panorama del best-seller internacional de calidad, falleció la madrugada del viernes a los 55 años en Los Ángeles, donde vivía desde 1994, fulminado por un ataque al corazón consecuencia de un cáncer que padecía desde hace algo más de dos años. “Hoy es un día muy triste para todo el equipo de Planeta que le conoció y trabajó con él durante 20 años, en los que se ha forjado una amistad que trasciende lo profesional”, señaló en un comunicado su editorial, que le calificó como “uno de los mejores novelistas contemporáneos”.
posted by chavenet at 5:57 AM on June 20, 2020 [2 favorites]
Con el mismo inopinado fogonazo con el que irrumpió en el panorama editorial con su ya referencial La sombra del viento, Carlos Ruiz Zafón, quizá el escritor español contemporáneo más homologable en el panorama del best-seller internacional de calidad, falleció la madrugada del viernes a los 55 años en Los Ángeles, donde vivía desde 1994, fulminado por un ataque al corazón consecuencia de un cáncer que padecía desde hace algo más de dos años. “Hoy es un día muy triste para todo el equipo de Planeta que le conoció y trabajó con él durante 20 años, en los que se ha forjado una amistad que trasciende lo profesional”, señaló en un comunicado su editorial, que le calificó como “uno de los mejores novelistas contemporáneos”.
posted by chavenet at 5:57 AM on June 20, 2020 [2 favorites]
from the guardian article:
"I became a writer, a teller of tales, because otherwise I would have died, or worse."
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posted by kliuless at 5:59 AM on June 20, 2020 [1 favorite]
...with The Shadow of the Wind he “wanted to create something very special”."I write for a living. I've been writing and making stuff up to make ends meet since I left school."
“So what I did was take what for me is very important, which is take all the great ambition in all those 19th-century novels, but try to reconstruct those big novels – the Tolstoy, the Dickens, the Wilkie Collins – but try to reconstruct all of that with all the narrative elements that the 20th century has given us, from the grammar of cinema, from multimedia, from general fiction, from everything that is out there, to create a much more intense reading experience for the readers,” he said.
"I became a writer, a teller of tales, because otherwise I would have died, or worse."
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posted by kliuless at 5:59 AM on June 20, 2020 [1 favorite]
I rather like this appreciation from The Irish Times from two years ago.
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posted by adamvasco at 6:28 AM on June 20, 2020 [1 favorite]
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posted by adamvasco at 6:28 AM on June 20, 2020 [1 favorite]
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Thank you so much for posting this, I don't think I would've known otherwise. The Shadow of the Wind is one of my all time favorite books.
posted by bluesky43 at 7:42 AM on June 20, 2020 [1 favorite]
Thank you so much for posting this, I don't think I would've known otherwise. The Shadow of the Wind is one of my all time favorite books.
posted by bluesky43 at 7:42 AM on June 20, 2020 [1 favorite]
Shadow of the Wind is written with such poetry, intrigue, and love for literature... It reads like music, and all of that comes across in the English translation. It’s one of my favorite books, and now I want to read more from Zafón.
posted by purple_frogs at 9:41 AM on June 20, 2020
posted by purple_frogs at 9:41 AM on June 20, 2020
I started with the first book. Loved it. (Being a person with thousands of books.) Read the second. Loved it too. A year or so went by and I got the third. It wasn’t as good, it seemed to be there to try to tie loose ends together. Got the fourth with some trepidations, but it was the best. And after finishing it and looking back I realized that all four came together to create a real living world that I got share. Seeing this news this morning was really sad. But at least I got to read his books.
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posted by njohnson23 at 11:15 AM on June 20, 2020 [1 favorite]
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posted by njohnson23 at 11:15 AM on June 20, 2020 [1 favorite]
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posted by OverlappingElvis at 12:48 PM on June 20, 2020
posted by OverlappingElvis at 12:48 PM on June 20, 2020
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posted by randomonium at 1:26 PM on June 20, 2020
posted by randomonium at 1:26 PM on June 20, 2020
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posted by Nibbly Fang at 8:47 PM on June 20, 2020
posted by Nibbly Fang at 8:47 PM on June 20, 2020
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