Zafón, easily my favorite author hailing from Barcelona, Spain, possibly my favorite writer in all of Europe, wrote books that read like poetry while telling compelling stories anchored in Spain's tumultuous history. He easily holds a place in my top authors along with Edward the Prophet Abbey, Eduardo Galeano, Haruki Murakami, Gabriel Garcia Márquez, Pablo Neruda, and Terry Tempest Williams, all, whose books I've pretty much exhausted aside from obscure works I can't find. Four on the list composed their blood and tears in Spanish. So compelling were their English works, I am saddened I'm not able to experience the Spanish language versions with the nuances that escape translations or non-native speakers. Such is the curse of being monolingual in a world blessed with legions of fascinating languages, including words that are not translatable into my natal tongue.
