The whole intricate plot of Ruiz Zafón’s Shadow of the Wind begins with his father taking him to this labyrinthine locked-up library of forgotten books where he is to choose one and keep it.  The reading of this chosen book leads him into the labyrinthine story of its author which he unravels, along with the sad fates of the preceding generation.  In so doing, he seems to liberate others from repeating history.

The Cemetery is a negative mirror of a Library of Remembered Books, the place where books are taken in secret after they have been forgotten by the book world.  Having picked up a few treasures cast off by libraries because nobody has borrowed the book in a while, or some other spurious reason, I am sadly attuned to books being forgotten.

‘I still remember the day my father took me to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books for the first time.’

See also our celebration of this book, complete with a mosaic of illustrated quotations and metaphors.

Source: Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind, trans. Lucia Graves (London: Phoenix, 2012), p. 1

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