Five years after his death, the author of 'La sombra del viento' is still the most widely read Spanish writer in the world. His latest translations have reached Kurdistan, Ethiopia and Mongolia.
In the shadow of a stone angel, among melancholic cypresses and sea views, the dragon that Gaudí forged in iron for the gate of the Garden of the Hesperides guards the tomb of Carlos Ruiz Zafón (1964-2020). Winged and with flaring nostrils, the dragon engraved in shiny black contrasts with the marble of the tombstone, crowned by a phrase by Julián Carax, the cursed writer invented by Ruiz Zafón in his immortal ‘La sombra del Viento,’ (2001): “We exist as long as someone remembers us.”
Placed in the tomb and held down by two rocks so it won’t fly away, is the first page of the novel, on a rough paper hardened by saltpeter and already yellowed but perfectly legible. There are also dragon stuffed animals, old pesetas, pens and dried roses which readers and friends have been leaving on their visits to the writer.
