The Shadow of the Wind () is a 2001 novel by the Spanish writer Carlos Ruiz Zafón and a worldwide bestseller. The book was translated into English in 2004 by Lucia Graves and sold over a million copies in the UK after already achieving success on mainland Europe, topping the Spanish bestseller lists for weeks. It was published in the United States by Penguin Books and in Great Britain by Weidenfeld & Nicolson and Orion Books. It is believed to have sold 15 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling books of all time. Ruiz Zafón's follow-up, The Angel's Game, is a prequel to The Shadow of the Wind. His third in the series, The Prisoner of Heaven, is the sequel to The Shadow of the Wind. Plot summary The novel is actually a story within a story. The novel opens in the 1940's with the protagonist, Daniel, a boy whose father owns a bookshop in Barcelona. One day, his father takes him to the Cemetery of Forgotten books - a secret labyrinthine library that houses rare and banned books. Daniel is drawn to one called "The Shadow of the Wind" by Julian Carax and takes it home with him. Daniel quickly reads and falls in love with the story. He soon discovers that the book's mysterious author, Carax, has gone missing along with every other copy of "The Shadow of the Wind" and most of his other works. Daniel then sets out to find out what happened to the author and his books. When word gets around that Daniel possesses the only known copy of "The Shadow of the Wind," he receives an inquiry from Gustavo Barcelo, a rare bookseller and expert on Carax who wishes to purchase it. Daniel refuses to sell it, but soon falls in love with Barcelo's blind niece, Clara, and begins to pay frequent visits to read "The Shadow of the Wind" to her. However, she is several years older and does not reciprocate his feelings. His possession of the book also attracts the attention of a mysterious stranger with a badly burned and disfigured face named Lain Coubert (the name of the character of the devil in the book) who is also trying to get his hands on it. Daniel befriends a man who goes by the alias of Fermín Romero de Torres, who was imprisoned and tortured in Montjuïc Castle