Playing the Angel

by Adriana V. López. -- Críticas, 5/15/2008

Some might call Carlos Ruiz Zafón a lucky little devil. A writer who could have been content publishing four well-received young adult novels (which won him prizes and publishing street cred), as he earned a nice living as an advertising executive. But no, he decided to really go for it.

His fifth novel, the first for adults, was nothing less than a masterpiece: a haunting tribute to the city of his childhood, a postwar Barcelona with fog and streetlamps, a cemetery of forgotten books, and a killer love story. La sombra del viento (The Shadow of the Wind; Planeta, 2001)—a title that still twinkled with adolescent magic—was published in Spain without much ado. It hobbled along like most promising new novels do: it got a nod as a Premio Fernando Lara finalist, good reviews, and your standard marketing routine.

But then something special happened. A heavenly breeze of word-of-mouth wafted along Barcelona’s cobble stoned streets. Eventually picking up speed as it swept across Spain, it became a gale of best-selling force around the world, selling ten million copies in over 30 languages since its publication.

Cinderella story
In 2003, when Scott Moyers, then an editor at Penguin Press, caught wind of the book, it had sold roughly 200,000 copies in Spain. Solid numbers, yes, but to buy a novel by an unknown foreign author and sell it in translation in the States is always chancy. Also take into account the timing. His editor Ann Godoff had just departed from Random House to start up Penguin Press. All eyes were on the new imprint’s first list, and the sole novel that appeared on it that year was none other than The Shadow of the Wind, the translation by Robert Graves’ daughter, Lucia Graves, to be published in 2004.

Marla Norman, then Editorial Planeta’s U.S. sales director and fan of the book, celebrated with Penguin during its co- English-and Spanish-language publication events in the States. But she warned them that they had to be patient. “If Sombra is going to behave like it first did in Spain,” said Norman, “Penguin is going to have to expect a slow build.” And she was right; slow but fruitful it was. Four years after its publication, three-quarters of a million English-language copies and 25,000 Spanish-language copies have been sold to date in the States.

While that million mark has not been crossed in the States yet, (though it has been in the U.K., the Netherlands, and Germany), and Ruiz Zafón still isn’t a household name, the book received glowing reviews from a wide range of critics from The New York Times and the Washington Post. In Entertainment Weekly, Stephen King gushed. “If you thought the true gothic novel died with the 19th century, this will change your mind,” wrote King. “Shadow is the real deal...a novel where even the subplots have subplots...this is one gorgeous read.” A new breed of Shadow fan had been born.

This past April when Ruiz Zafón’s U.S. agent Tom Colchie was negotiating on behalf of the Antonia Kerrigan agency in Barcelona it became evident how many New York editors surreptitiously held a torch for Shadow. When it came time to sell a prequel to Shadow called El juego del ángel (The Angel’s Game) the bidding war got hot. Then news broke that on April 17, Planeta would publish one million hardback copies of the prequel, beating out J.K. Rowling and Ken Follet as the biggest first print run in Spanish history. Seven parties were involved in the North American English-language rights auction, and in the end, El juego, a book set in 1920’s Barcelona and centered around the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, went to Steve Rubin at Doubleday for a seven figure advance. The new book is said to be one in a series of four. Weeks later yet another division at Random House won a competitive auction for the North American Spanish-language rights, an added perk for the book since Planeta’s Miami offices shut its doors, and its agreement with HarperCollins did not include Ruiz Zafón. Vintage Español’s Milena Alberti, director of Spanish-language publishing, announced they would publish reasonably priced hardcover and paperback copies on May 13 to fall close to the international release. In its first week, El juego sold 600, 000 copies in Spain alone. [Check criticasmagazine.com in June for a review.—Ed.]

Dragon love
Ruiz Zafón and his wife of 14 years, Mari Carmen, have made Los Angeles, CA, their home for over a decade now, though they visit Barcelona often. Since he was eight he’s been telling friends that he was going to live in L.A. one day—the home of jazz, classic American cinema, and his hero Orson Welles. “Cities are a particular interest of mine. I see them as organic creatures, and I am very interested in their history, their architecture, and their secrets.” Though that kind of L.A. died long ago, like the Barcelona in his books, Ruiz Zafón still likes the open space of California. “It mostly leaves me alone and doesn’t stick any labels to me,” he says. The man needs his solitude.

Aside from writing books, he also writes screenplays for Hollywood, plays the piano, and composes songs, some of which appear on an accompanying CD for a special edition of Sombra. He’s also got a dragon collection. “I’ve been collecting dragons for many years, and probably have over 500 by now,” says Ruiz Zafón. “I’m just one more of them, which is why we tend to get together and mingle. The green and mean of the world gotta be united.”

Born in 1964, he grew up in architecturally stunning Barcelona, with aging buildings adorned with dragons and gargoyles. In fact he and his older brother were raised in a house one block away from Gaudi’s jaw-dropping fantasy cathedral La Sagrada Familia. “The cathedral was the first and last thing I would see as a child when I went in and out of our home,” says Ruiz Zafón. If it’s true we become who we are because of our surroundings, that explains everything. But that’s not all. He also attended the Jesuitas de Sarriá School housed in a late 19th century red brick neo-gothic palace with towers and creepy passages that he describes as “one hell of a location.” It was the kind of place where a prodigious child’s imagination and blooming literary ambition could run wild.

Early ambitions
For all the good luck he’s had, you also have to give him credit for his hard work and clear ambitions from the get go. His first publishing venture was when he was around nine or ten years old. “A bunch of friends and I started this business, a publishing house,” he says. “I wrote seven page stories, as gory, scary, and sinister as I could come up with; another partner drew the covers; another Xeroxed them; another was our marketing and sales rep guy. We were a hit. Made lots of cash and got into really serious candy money. We were on our way to rival Random House when the principal shut us down on charges of immorality, illicit business practices, and excessively enterprising spirits. The bastard.”

In an interview with La Vanguardia in 2001, he was asked if he’d ever had a manuscript rejected. What followed was his best attempt at a no. He said that when he was 14 he wrote a tome of 500 pages and sent it to Francisco Porrúa, none other than Julio Cortázar’s editor. Porrúa had such a good laugh that he invited him to his office, where he gave him lots of good advice about life and about literature.

A romantic perfectionist
Emili Rosales, the Catalan writer and Ruiz Zafón’s current editor at Planeta, joined the house only a few months before Sombra’s manuscript dropped on his desk. Rosales describes his star author as a literary and sociological phenomenon. “For close to fifteen years he’s been between two worlds, a European and a North American one,” says Rosales. “I think he’s one of the first authors in Spain to be considered global, selling as many books outside of Spain as he does within. It’s as if they (non-Spanish readers) feel he is theirs, too.” Upon finishing El juego, Rosales says he thought it was even better than Sombra. It is, he says, a work of “superb emotion, drama, history and brilliant dialogs—worth studying in literature classes.” He also called his author a perfectionist, a writer adamant about taking his time in getting it right before he delivers his manuscripts, even while everyone waits.

It took Ruiz Zafón’s about five years to research and dream up the idea for the prequel, then about two years to write it. “Things simmer in your mind for years until you really sit down to take the bull by the horns and wrestle it into paper,” says Ruiz Zafón. Once it’s down on paper and finished, he only lets Mari Carmen—the woman he met 18 years ago at a big mansion on Avenida del Tibidabo, 32, the same romantic location he used in Sombra—read his work. They’ve done it this way for years. “I don’t write for myself,” he admits, “I write for people who love to read, but mostly, I write for her.”

Books by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

El juego del ángel. (The Angel’s Game) (2008) Vintage Español. ISBN 978-0-307-45537-6	Luces de septiembre. (September Lights) (2007) Planeta.  ISBN 978-0-06-156557-1
El príncipe de la niebla. (Prince of the Darkness) (2006) Rayo. ISBN 978-0-06-128438-0	El palacio de la medianoche. (The Palace of Midnight) (2006) Rayo. ISBN 978-0-06-128437-3
La sombra del viento (The Shadow of the Wind)  (2001) Planeta. ISBN 978-0-9748724-0-7	La sombra del viento  (Edición conmemorativa ilustrada).  (The Shadow of the Wind,  Illustrated Edition) (2005) Planeta. ISBN 84-08-05252-7