The Shadow of the Wind, by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, first published in Spanish in 2001 (La Sombra del Viento), found international acclaim through Lucia Graves’ English translation. Set in post-Civil War Barcelona, the novel draws readers into a labyrinthine world of forgotten books, buried secrets, and stories within stories.
The narrative opens with a young boy, Daniel, who is taken by his father to the mysterious “Cemetery of Forgotten Books”, a secret sanctuary for lost literature. There, he is allowed to pick one book, and as Daniel pulls out ‘The Shadow of the Wind’ by Julian Carax from the dusty shelves, his life takes an unusual turn. Captivated by the book, he sets out on a quest to learn more about the author, but ends up discovering that someone has been religiously burning every copy of Carax’s works. What begins as a literary curiosity soon becomes a gripping journey through love, betrayal, and literary intrigue, as Daniel unearths the dark underbelly of Barcelona’s past, his own life eerily beginning to mirror it.
A blend of mystery, romance, historical fiction, magical realism, and a lot of drama, The Shadow of the Wind was one of the first books that I read, and immediately fell in love with. However, it was only recently that during a discussion on translation, someone remarked that “We often read translations without even realizing that it is a translation”, and this was the book that immediately came to mind. Returning to it as a translation, I realized how layered the experience is, as Zafon’s original symphony of voices, moods, and metaphors, is given a new life by Graves in her translation.
Graves does not simply carry the plot across language, she carries the tone, the rhythm, the irony, the sorrow, and the wit of the narrative. Her translation retains the elegance and the musicality of the Spanish, the atmospheric intensity of Barcelona, and the tragic beauty of Zafon’s characters. She has breathed into Zafon’s rich metaphors and poetic sentences, a new life in English, while simultaneously carrying the emotional weight and mystical depth of the original. The narrative moves fluidly across timelines and voices, revealing the story of Carax’s tragic past alongside Daniel’s present investigations. In the process, The Shadow of the Wind becomes a novel within a novel, and Graves’ translation captures this multi-layered storytelling with subtlety and power.
One of the greatest triumphs of this translation is how Graves renders the setting in English. The mid-20th century Barcelona in Zafon’s novel is not only a backdrop, but vivid and immersive, it almost feels like a living presence drenched in shadows of past and secrets of present. As Daniel walks through the lanes of Barcelona, encounters eerie ruins, and grapples with the post war sociopolitical tensions that shape the lives of the characters, the reader does not feel like a distant observer, but Graves’ translation transports the reader into the very world of the novel. The gothic undertones and eerie texture of the novel invites readers’ curiosity, and allows the emotional depth of the narrative and suspense to resonate with the audiences. Zafon’s writing is steeped in atmosphere, and Graves has rendered it with a poetic sensibility that seems both natural and evocative, and yet retains the original’s Gothic grandeur.
The Shadow of the Wind, in its exploration of an author’s tormented life, and a reader’s attempt to preserve his works, becomes more than a story, it is a love letter to the very act of storytelling, and through Graves’ translation reaching the global audiences, it almost becomes a parallel act of recovery, one that carries stories across languages and beyond borders.
About the writer:
Iqra Shamim is a literature enthusiast who graduated from St. Stephen’s College and did her MA in English from Delhi University (2024). She is currently an intern for AfterWord. Passionate about translation, she has a deep appreciation for the lyrical elegance of Urdu poetry and the vast literary traditions of English literature. When translating, she finds inspiration in the timeless verses of classical and contemporary writers.