Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s “The Shadow of the Wind” is a story about a boy named Daniel Sempere who comes in contact with a book written by a man named Julian Carax, and through many twists of fate he begins searching for Julian.

Zafon is truly a romantic writer. A few examples of his descriptive ability are as follows: “I remember the light, like liquid gold, pouring off the sheets”;“. . . a book is a mirror that offers us only what we already carry inside us. . .”

Zafon said that he is an avid reader, and if he did not write he would have died. The intensely and intricately woven story line and Zafon’s use of words to describe ordinary things throughout the novel make his love for literature absolutely evident.

The central message many have gleaned from the novel is that the worst prison of all is loneliness and living without hope.

While it embodies and attempts to explain the deepest and darkest caverns of humanity, Zafon also provides the reader with humor and unyielding love.

The time period is post-war Barcelona, 1945. Barcelona is still recovering from a civil war some 20 years early and now from the recent World War.

The war-torn city becomes not only a backdrop, but a symbol for the lives of the characters in The Shadow of the Wind; they too struggle with intense hardships and heartbreaks.

It begins when Daniel is eleven years old and his father takes him to a place called the Cemetery of Forgotten Books.

As tradition goes, Daniel picks one book from the Cemetery; He picks the Shadow of the Wind, a fictional book with the same title, by Julian Carax.

After completely immersing himself within the pages and finishing it in one night, Daniel tries without luck to find more books by Julain Carax. Daniel begins a dangerous journey through Barcelona’s past to find the author.

Through his searching he learns that a man with a burnt face named Lain Coubert has been finding all of Carax’s books and burning them.

Later, Daniel discovers that Julian fled to Paris in 1919 and is rumored to have returned to Barcelona where he was killed in an alleyway.

Not about to give up his search, Daniel with the help of his clever friend Fermin Romero de Torres, searches for old friends of Julian while trying to avoid the chief of police Fumero, who has his own hidden agenda.

To spoil the end would be a grave disservice to whomever is reading this, because I highly recommend this novel.

Sigma Tau Delta, Linfield’s English honors society, regularly contributes book reviews to The Linfield Review.