carlos ruiz zafón the cemetery of forgotten books

The devil is in the detail and, it appears, on later reflection, that the publishers also gloss over some of Zafón’s creaks in the plots. David Mitchell writes the foreword and, twice, makes reference to ten, not eleven, tales herein, though a cursory check of the contents page proves this false. The publishers have also included a short extract from the first of Zafón’s Cemetery of Forgotten Books series, namely, The Shadow of the Wind. The City of Mist (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2022, translated from the original Spanish by Lucia Graves) is a collection of eleven stories, including two translated into English by the author himself, and one written in English. Perhaps all writers have a penchant for particular themes or scenes, descriptions, individual words or phrases, or any combination thereof, and Zafón’s returns are wrapped up in the city of Barcelona, in a fusion of the gothic-noir, in painterly touches of colour, such as red skies, a violet light, in dark angels and gargoyles and picture-perfect women, in ice and ashes, in shadows and the promise of labyrinths. For readers new to the writings of Carlos Ruiz Zafón, this posthumously published collection offers the possibility of fantastical immersion in his celebrated Cemetery of Forgotten Books quartet however, here in his shorter offerings, at least, there is also the possibility of perceiving a certain degree of style over substance.

Carlos ruiz zafón the cemetery of forgotten books