The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

“Every book, every volume you see here, has a soul.” // (pause – let that sink in) The soul of the person who wrote it, and of those who read it and lived and dreamed with it. // (soft breath)

Tonight, we step into the fog-draped streets of post-war Barcelona // (slightly slower, dramatic) through the pages of The Shadow of the Wind, a masterpiece by Spanish author Carlos Ruiz Zafón. // (pause, let the name resonate)

Carlos Ruiz Zafón (1964–2020) was born in Barcelona, a city that would later breathe life into his stories. // (pause) He began with young adult fiction, but in 2001, with The Shadow of the Wind, he captured the hearts of readers worldwide. // (slightly slower, awe in tone) Translated into over forty languages, the novel became an instant sensation. // (pause)

The first in the Cemetery of Forgotten Books series, it introduced Zafón’s signature blend of mystery, romance, history, and literary philosophy. // (soft, reflective tone) In 1945, a young boy named Daniel Sempere // (slow, introduce character) is taken by his father to a secret labyrinth of books, the Cemetery of Forgotten Books. // (pause, let the imagery land) There, Daniel discovers The Shadow of the Wind by a mysterious author, Julián Carax. // (slightly mysterious tone)

When Daniel seeks more of Carax’s books, he discovers that someone is destroying every copy. // (pause, dramatic tension) Curiosity spirals into a labyrinthine mystery filled with family secrets, forbidden love, and echoes of the Spanish Civil War. // (slow, reflective emphasis)

At its heart, this is a book about books—about how stories shape us, about memory and identity, and the thin line between reality and imagination. // (pause after each key phrase) It asks: How do the stories we read—and the stories we live—define who we are? // (slightly slower, reflective)

Zafón’s Barcelona comes alive with winding streets, hidden courtyards, and whispers of the past. // (pause) As Daniel’s search deepens, the novel shows how books preserve lives, even as time and history threaten to erase them. // (reverent tone)

Critics called it a “love letter to literature itself,” // (pause, emphasize) and readers around the world reconnected with the joy of losing themselves in a story. // (soft, gentle pace)

So tonight, as you follow Daniel through misty streets, // (slow, immersive) remember: this is not just a mystery about a missing author. // (slight pause for emphasis) It’s a story about why we read, why we remember, and why, sometimes, books save us. // (finish slowly, let the last line resonate)

✅ Reading Tips: Bolded words = emotional peaks and soul connection. // Use pauses to let imagery and emotion settle. // Slow down for reflection, vary tone, and control your breath to let the audience feel every moment.

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Reading 1 (Part 2)

I STILL REMEMBER THE DAY MY FATHER TOOK ME TO THE CEMETERY OF FORGOTTEN BOOKS for the first time. // It was the early summer of 1945, and we walked through the streets of a Barcelona trapped beneath ashen skies as dawn poured over Rambla de Santa Mónica in a wreath of liquid copper.

“Daniel, you mustn’t tell anyone what you’re about to see today,” my father warned. // “Not even your friend Tomás. No one.”

“Not even Mommy?” //

My father sighed, hiding behind the sad smile that followed him like a shadow through life.

“Of course you can tell her,” he answered, heavyhearted. // “We keep no secrets from her. You can tell her everything.”

Shortly after the Civil War, an outbreak of cholera had taken my mother away. // We buried her in Montjuïc on my fourth birthday. // I can only recall that it rained all day and all night, and when I asked my father whether heaven was crying, he couldn’t bring himself to reply. // Six years later my mother’s absence remained in the air around us, a deafening silence that I had not yet learned to stifle with words.

My father and I lived in a modest apartment on Calle Santa Ana, a stone’s throw from the church square. // The apartment was directly above the bookshop, a legacy from my grandfather that specialized in rare collectors’ editions and secondhand books—an enchanted bazaar, which my father hoped would one day be mine.

I was raised among books, making invisible friends in pages that seemed cast from dust and whose smell I carry on my hands to this day. // As a child I learned to fall asleep talking to my mother in the darkness of my bedroom, telling her about the day’s events, my adventures at school, and the things I had been taught.

I couldn’t hear her voice or feel her touch, but her radiance and her warmth haunted every corner of our home, and I believed, with the innocence of those who can still count their age on their ten fingers, that if I closed my eyes and spoke to her, she would be able to hear me wherever she was. // Sometimes my father would listen to me from the dining room, crying in silence.

On that June morning, I woke up screaming at first light. // My heart was pounding in my chest as if it feared that my soul wanted to carve its way out and run off down the stairs.

My father hurried into my room and held me in his arms, trying to calm me.

“I can’t remember her face. I can’t remember Mommy’s face,” I muttered, breathless. //

My father held me tight. //

“Don’t worry, Daniel. I’ll remember for both of us.”

We looked at each other in the half-light, searching for words that didn’t exist. // For the first time, I realized my father was growing old. He stood up and drew the curtains to let in the pale glint of dawn.

“Come, Daniel, get dressed. I want to show you something,” he said. //

“Now? At five o’clock in the morning?” //

“Some things can only be seen in the shadows,” my father said, flashing a mysterious smile probably borrowed from the pages of one of his worn Alexandre Dumas romances.

✅ Reading cues notes:

• Bolded words = emotional peaks, important visuals, and internal feelings.

• Double slashes (//) = slight pause; let the audience absorb.

• Slow pacing for memories and reflections, faster for dialogue.

• Emphasize physical sensations: heart pounding, screaming, crying.

• Let visual imagery land: ashen skies, liquid copper, enchanted bazaar.

• Convey nostalgia and intimacy in father-son interactions.

Reading 2 (Part 3)

SHORTLY BEFORE DAWN, WITH ONLY AN OIL LAMP TO LIGHT MY WAY, I went back into the Cemetery of Forgotten Books. // (slow, immersive; let the scene settle in the audience’s mind)

As I did so, I imagined Isaac’s daughter wandering through the same dark and endless corridors with exactly the same determination as guided me that day: to save the book. // (slightly slower, reflective; emphasize determination and to save the book)

I thought I remembered the route I’d followed the first time I visited that place with my father, but soon I realized that the folds of the labyrinth bent the passages into spirals that were impossible to recall. // (pause after spirals; let the confusion of the labyrinth register)

Three times I tried to follow a path I thought I had memorized, and three times the maze returned me to the same point. // (slightly faster; show frustration or persistence)

Isaac waited for me there, a wry smile on his face. // (pause; slight smile in tone)

“Do you intend to come back for it one day?” he asked. // (gentle curiosity in voice)

“Of course.” // (soft, confident)

“In that case you might like to cheat a little.” // (mysterious tone; pause before next line)

“Cheat?” // (slightly faster, questioning)

“Young man, you’re a bit slow on the uptake, aren’t you? Remember the Minotaur.” // (playful, amused; pause after Minotaur)

It took me a few seconds to understand what he was suggesting. Isaac pulled an old penknife out of his pocket and handed it to me. // (slightly slower; emphasize penknife)

“Make a mark on every corner, a notch only you will recognize. It’s old wood and so full of scratches and grooves that nobody will notice it, unless the person knows what he’s looking for….” // (slow, careful; show the methodical instruction)

I followed his advice and once more penetrated the heart of the structure. // (pause slightly; sense of adventure)

Every time I changed direction, I stopped to mark the shelves with a C and an X on the side of the passage that I was intending to take. // (slightly faster; detail-oriented)

Twenty minutes later I had lost myself in the depths of the tower, and then, quite by chance, the place where I was going to bury the novel was revealed to me. // (pause; sense of relief and discovery)

To my right I noticed a row of volumes on the disentailment of church property penned by the distinguished Jovellanos. // (slightly slower; emphasize Jovellanos and visual detail)

To my adolescent eyes, such a camouflage would have dissuaded even the craftiest mind. // (reflective tone; slight pause)

I took out a few tomes and inspected the second row that was concealed behind those walls of marble prose. // (slightly faster, descriptive)

Among little clouds of dust, various plays by Moratín and a brand-new Curial e Güelfa stood side by side with Spinoza’s Tractatus Theologico-Politicus. // (pause to let names resonate; slightly reverent tone)

As a coup de grâce, I resolved to confine the Carax book between the 1901 yearbook of judicial minutiae from the civil courts of Gerona and a collection of novels by Juan Valera. // (slow, dramatic emphasis on Carax book)

In order to make space, I decided to remove and take with me the book of Golden Age poetry that separated them, and in its place I slipped in The Shadow of the Wind. // (pause after The Shadow of the Wind; let the title resonate)

I took my leave of the novel with a wink and put the Jovellanos anthology back in its place, walling in the back row. // (gentle, secretive; slightly playful tone)

Without further ado I left the place, finding my route by the marks I had made on the way in. // (slightly faster; sense of resolution)

As I walked in the dark through the tunnels and tunnels of books, I could not help being overcome by a sense of sadness. // (slow, reflective; emphasize sadness)

I couldn’t help thinking that if I, by pure chance, had found a whole universe in a single unknown book, buried in that endless necropolis, tens of thousands more would remain unexplored, forgotten forever. // (pause; weight of discovery)

I felt myself surrounded by millions of abandoned pages, by worlds and souls without an owner sinking in an ocean of darkness, while the world that throbbed outside the library seemed to be losing its memory, day after day, unknowingly, feeling all the wiser the more it forgot. // (slow, reverent; let each image linger)

Reading 3 (Part 4)

A FRONT DOOR OF ROTTED WOOD LET US INTO A COURTYARD // (slow, immersive; emphasize texture and decay) guarded by gas lamps that flickered above gargoyles and angels, their features disintegrating on the old stone. // (slightly slower; let the imagery linger)

A staircase led to the first floor, where a rectangle of light marked the main entrance to the hospice. // (pause; emphasize contrast of light and dark) The gaslight radiating from this opening gave an ocher tone to the miasma that emanated from within. // (slow, almost heavy; highlight atmosphere)

An angular, predatory figure observed us coolly from the shadows of the door’s archway, her eyes the same color as her habit. // (pause; suspense) She held a steaming wooden bucket that gave off an indescribable stench. // (slightly faster; show sensory reaction)

“Hail-Mary-Full-of-Grace-Conceived-Without-Sin!” Fermín called out enthusiastically. // (faster; contrast tone with foreboding setting)

“Where’s the coffin?” answered the voice from up high, serious and taciturn. // (slow, dramatic; emphasize coffin)

“Coffin?” Fermín and I replied in unison. // (slightly faster; subtle humor)

“Aren’t you from the undertaker’s?” asked the nun in a weary voice. // (reflective tone; pause slightly)

I wondered whether that was a comment on our appearance or a genuine question. Fermín’s face lit up at such a providential opportunity. // (pause; subtle humor)

“The coffin is in the van. First we’d like to examine the customer. Pure technicality.” // (slightly faster; emphasis on absurdity)

I felt overpowered by nausea. // (slow; pause; physical reaction)

“I thought Mr. Collbató was going to come in person,” said the nun. // (slightly faster; neutral tone)

“Mr. Collbató begs to be excused, but a rather complicated embalming has cropped up at the last moment. A circus strongman.” // (pause after embalming and circus strongman; let imagery land)

“Do you work with Mr. Collbató in the funeral parlor?” // (neutral, questioning tone)

“We’re his right and left hands, respectively. Wilfred the Hairy at your service, and here, at my side, my apprentice and student, Sansón Carrasco.” // (slightly faster; introduce characters; emphasize names)

“Pleased to meet you,” I rounded off. // (soft, polite)

The nun gave us a brief looking-over and nodded, indifferent to the pair of scarecrows reflected in her eyes. // (pause; subtle tension)

“Welcome to Santa Lucía. I’m Sister Hortensia, the one who called you. Follow me.” // (slow, reflective; authority in tone)

We followed Sister Hortensia without a word through a cavernous corridor whose smell reminded me of the subway tunnels. // (slightly faster; emphasize sensory detail) It was flanked by doorless frames through which one could make out candlelit halls filled with rows of beds, piled up against the wall and covered with mosquito nets that moved in the air like shrouds. // (slow, descriptive; let imagery linger)

I could hear groans and see glimpses of human shapes through the netting. // (pause; eerie tone)

“This way,” Sister Hortensia beckoned, a few yards ahead of us. // (slightly faster; follow her lead)

We entered a wide vault, where I found no difficulty in situating the stage for the Tenebrarium described by Fermín. // (pause; dramatic) The darkness obscured what at first seemed to me a collection of wax figures, sitting or abandoned in corners, with dead, glassy eyes that shone like tin coins in the candlelight. // (slow; suspense; emphasize visual detail)

I thought that perhaps they were dolls or remains of the old museum. Then I realized that they were moving, though very slowly, even stealthily. // (pause; tension builds) It was impossible to tell their age or gender. The rags covering them were the color of ash. // (slightly faster; emphasize mystery)

“Mr. Collbató said not to touch or clean anything,” said Sister Hortensia, looking slightly apologetic. // (gentle; slight pause) “We just placed the poor thing in one of the boxes that was lying around here, because he was beginning to drip, but that’s done.” // (slow, slightly horror-tinged; pause at drip)

“You did the right thing. You can’t be too careful,” agreed Fermín. // (soft; calm reassurance)

I threw him a despairing look. He shook his head calmly, indicating that I should leave him in charge of the situation. // (slightly slower; internal tension)

Sister Hortensia led us to what appeared to be a cell with no ventilation or light, at the end of a narrow passage. // (pause; suspense) She took one of the gas lamps that hung from the wall and handed it to us. // (slightly faster; preparation)

“Will you be long? I’m rather busy.” // (neutral, matter-of-fact)

“Don’t worry about us. You get on with your things, and we’ll take him away.” // (slightly slower; reassurance; gentle closure)