W&N signs 'epic' finale to Cemetery of Forgotten Books series

Weidenfeld & Nicolson is publishing a new novel by Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Labyrinth of the Spirits, the last in his "epic" The Cemetery of Forgotten Books series that spans more than a decade.

The Labyrinth of the Spirits, set in the same "spellbinding universe", is the final chapter in the cycle of novels that began in 2001 (in 2004 in the UK) with The Shadow of the Wind and continued with The Angel's Game and The Prisoner of Heaven. Ruiz Zafón’s novels have sold nearly 3m copies in the UK, according to W&N, citing him as the most-read Spanish novelist in the world after Cervantes.

The novel, publishing with La Planeta in Spain on 17th November this year, will appear in an English language edition in 2018, to be published simultaneously with the US, Canada and Australia, with a translation by Lucia Graves. UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada and ANZ, were bought by Kirsty Dunseath, Weidenfeld & Nicolson publisher, from Thomas Colchie at the Colchie Agency in New York, acting on behalf of Antonia Kerrigan at the Antonia Kerrigan Agency in Barcelona. 

Dunseath said: "I am absolutely thrilled to be publishing this brilliant new book by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. I don't want to give away the contents but what I can say is that it is a terrific novel absolutely crammed with drama, intrigue, humour, passion and stories within stories. Carlos has created a captivating world in his Cemetery of Forgotten Books cycle, and this final book brings all the stories together in an absolute firecracker of an ending that anyone can enjoy."