The author of the successful novels "The Shadow of the Wind" and "The Prisoner of the Sky" is dead, the publishing house of Carlos Ruiz Zafon announced Friday, June 19. The writer died of cancer at the age of 55 in Los Angeles, where he resided.
Translated into more than forty languages, Carlos Ruiz Zafon's books have notably been awarded in France with the Femina (2004) and Michelet (2005) prizes.
“Cada libro, cada tomo que ves, tiene alma. El alma de quien lo escribió, y el alma de quienes lo leyeron y vivieron y soñaron con él. ”
La Sombra del Viento
Hoy ha fallecido Carlos Ruiz Zafón, uno de los mejores novelistas contemporáneos.
And recordarem semper, Carlos! pic.twitter.com/KRJVEKSiAj
"Each book has a soul"
"One of the best contemporary novelists has left us, but he will remain very much alive among us through his books", praised the Planeta editions, which have published for twenty years the novels of Ruiz Zafon, in particular his tetralogy "The Cemetery of forgotten books ".
Published between 2001 and 2016, it includes "The Shadow of the Wind", "The Game of the Angel", "The Prisoner of the Sky" and "The Labyrinth of Spirits".
The publishing house quotes in its statement a sentence from the father of Daniel Sempere, main character of "The Shadow of the Wind", the author's best known book and one of the best-selling Spanish novels of recent decades . "Each book, each volume that you see, has a soul. The soul of the one who wrote it, and the soul of those who read it and lived and dreamed with it", says this character in showing his son the mysterious Cemetery of Forgotten Books, a secret and magical labyrinthine library, around which the whole saga revolves.
First children's literature
In this thrilling novel which takes place in Barcelona after the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), the young Daniel Sempere tries to unravel the mystery surrounding the writer Julian Carax.
The novel published in 2001 quickly became a huge publishing success, translated into fifty languages and sold to millions of copies worldwide, making a star of its author, who had hitherto devoted himself to children's literature.
Born in Barcelona in 1964, Carlos Ruiz Zafon, educated in a religious institution and graduate in communication, had first made a career in advertising before publishing his first novel at almost thirty years.
With AFP
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