num_pages: 403
description: The international literary sensation-a runaway bestseller in Spain, rights sold in more than 20 countries-about a boy's quest through the secrets and shadows of postwar Barcelona for a mysterious author whose book has proved as dangerous to own as it is impossible to forget.  Barcelona, 1945-just after the war, a great world city lies in shadow, nursing its wounds, and a boy named Daniel awakes on his eleventh birthday to find that he can no longer remember his mother's face. To console his only child, Daniel's widowed father, an antiquarian book dealer, initiates him into the secret of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, a library tended by Barcelona's guild of rare-book dealers as a repository for books forgotten by the world, waiting for someone who will care about them again. Daniel's father coaxes him to choose a volume from the spiraling labyrinth of shelves, one that, it is said, will have a special meaning for him. And Daniel so loves the novel he selects, The Shadow of the Wind by one Julian Carax, that he sets out to find the rest of Carax's work. To his shock, he discovers that someone has been systematically destroying every copy of every book this author has written. In fact, he may have the last one in existence. Before Daniel knows it his seemingly innocent quest has opened a door into one of Barcelona's darkest secrets, an epic story of murder, magic, madness and doomed love. And before long he realizes that if he doesn't find out the truth about Julian Carax, he and those closest to him will suffer horribly.
language: English
title: The Shadow of the Wind
titlecomplete: The Shadow of the Wind
characters: Bernarda, Antoni Fortuny, Beatriz Aguilar, Penélope Aldaya, Clara Barceló, Gustavo Barceló, Francisco Javier Fumero, Fernando Ramos, Ricardo Aldaya, Fermín Romero de Torres, Jorge Aldaya, Miquel Moliner, Jacinta Coronado, Daniel Sempere, Sophie Carax, Tomas Aguilar, Julián Carax, Nuria Monfort
genres: Spanish Literature, Spain, Historical Fiction, Historical, Magical Realism, Gothic, Fantasy, Mystery, Fiction, Books About Books
ratings_count: 609701
places: Spain, Barcelona, Catalonia
series: El cementerio de los libros olvidados
awards: awardedAt: 1104566400000
name: Barry Award
category: Best First Novel, awardedAt: 1104566400000
name: Gumshoe Award
category: Best European Crime Novel, awardedAt: 1072944000000
name: Borders Original Voices Award
category: Fiction, awardedAt: 1104566400000
name: Dilys Award, awardedAt: 1136102400000
name: Humo's Gouden Bladwijzer, awardedAt: 1072944000000
name: Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger
category: Roman, awardedAt: 1104566400000
name: Prix des libraires du Québec
category: Lauréats hors Québec, awardedAt: 1420099200000
name: One Book One San Diego, awardedAt: 1009872000000
name: Premi Llibreter de narrativa
publisher: Phoenix