Passion and humour the mark of Spanish author
Fiona Purdon writing in The Courier Mail.
June 05, 2009

Interviewing bestselling Spanish author Carlos Ruiz Zafon is like stepping into one of his novels - there is drama, humour and intrigue.

Zafon, who is speaking from Barcelona, is scheduled for a 40 minute interview but his passion and generosity overflows to 75 minutes. Zafon's first novel The Shadow of the Wind sold a record 10 million-plus copies - the second biggest-selling Spanish book in history behind 17th century classic Don Quixote.

This week the English-translated edition of his new novel The Angel's Game arrives in book shops. The Spanish version has already sold more than a 1.3 million copies since last year's publication.

The two novels are part of a four-book series based around the Cemetery of Forgotten Books in Barcelona, although Zafon is reluctant to give up too much information. I press him for more information. His answer could have easily been delivered by one of his novels' many sinister characters."If I told you I would have to kill you, I don't want to do that, it is like the CIA, I'd really have to kill you," Zafon laughs.

But he does reveal that he has mapped out a general plan for the other two books. Like The Shadow of the Wind and The Angel's Game, they will be set in Gothic-inspired 20th century Barcelona and there will be common characters and themes.

"When I first thought of The Shadow of the Wind, I thought of this quartet of stories," he says. "I could have written a monster novel of 3000 pages but I wanted to explore them as separate stories. They each enter and exit through different doors of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books."We find the same characters but from different perspectives in different times of their lives. I don't yet know the endings of the books, I always discover that once I start working on them."

Zafon, who was born in Barcelona in 1964, says readers will not have to read the four books in any particular order. Instead they will be interconnected, each with a different persona."The Shadow of the Wind is the good daughter of the family," he says. "The Angel's Game is the ugly stepsister. She is the bad girl of the family. The Angel's Game doesn't come home until the early hours of the morning and The Shadow of the Wind does what she is told."

Read the rest of Fiona Purdon's fascinating interview at Brisbane's Courier Mail online.

And to read NZ writer Gordon McLauchlan's review of ther two books link here.