An evening with ... Carlos Ruiz Zafón

First of all, a big hello and welcome back to a more active Literary Relish! I'm sure you'll all be relieved (heh) to know that I feel rather refreshed indeed and full of musings and reviews for this, the first day of summer! (something I'm finding rather hard to believe judging by the deluge of water swilling around our doorstep this evening...) A Scottish update is soon to follow but, in the meantime, I'm itching to to talk about my.... I mean Waterstones Deansgate's ... delectable evening with the great Carlos Ruiz Zafón last night.

Donning a rugby top and some rather funky glasses, the enthusiastic Manchester crowd were greeted (unbeknowningly) by a slightly hairier, more owlish version of Daddy Relish, an impression that automatically made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside...


I'd heard Carlos (oo, listen to me, like we're best friends or something!) interviewed before on the BBC World Service and other miscellaneous podcasts and whatnot and had great expectations as a result. He didn't disappoint. After a slightly corny introduction by the overexcited compere, the refreshingly humble star-author led with a chat about his 'YA' fiction (children study his books in Spain) that, I should mention, are just as, if not more popular with adults than the youngsters, and the development of a fourth book (eeek!) to round up his quartet of atmospheric novels surrounding the Cemetery of Forgotten Books.

Talk of inspiration, location and translation were abound (his books are translated into English by Lucia Graves - Robert Grave's daughter. Interesting fact of the week) and Zafón spoke enigmatically about all three. I even took an excited lady's photo getting every one of his novels signed, including a cheeky slip of paper for his fourth book. I have a bit of an aversion to hardbacks at the mo and therefore managed to control myself, sitting on my hands until the paperback comes out, but standing with the hoards was worth it to meet the man. A chuffed Relish returns to the grindstone this week!

Photo stolen from Waterstones as mine were terrible.
 Hope they don't mind!