The Shadow of the Wind

This section contains Nuria’s truthful account of her life and relationship with Julián Carax, rather than the lies she told Daniel when he first visited her. Knowing that Fumero was closing in on her, as one of Julián’s friends and a source of knowledge about him, she wrote her story down for Daniel in case she was killed. 

Nuria writes that she met Julián in the autumn of 1933. At that time she worked for Toni Cabestany, Julián’s Spanish publisher. Every two years, they received a manuscript from Julián, which was his own Spanish translation of a novel he originally wrote in French. Each of Julián’s books was a commercial disaster, with only about 100 of each book sold. Nuria read all of Julián’s books and could not understand why so few were sold.

Nuria protects Julián from someone who calls about once a month asking for his address. She removed his address in Paris from the company’s records. Once when she was performing some billing duties, she saw that a man named Miquel Moliner paid for the publishing of each of Julián’s novels.  

Nuria goes to meet Miquel and a friendship develops between them.