The Painter of Souls

After selling more than 10 million copies, Ildefonso Falcones returns with a fascinating novel.

A powerful story of love, passion for art, social unrest and revenge in modernist Barcelona.

Barcelona, 1901. The city experiences days of great social upheaval. The dark misery of the most disadvantaged contrasts with the elegant opulence of the grand avenues, where some unique buildings already stand out, symbolizing the arrival of Modernism.

Dalmau Sala, son of an executed anarchist, is a young painter who lives trapped between two worlds. On one hand, his family and Emma, the woman he loves, are firm defenders of the workers' struggle; men and women who know no fear when demanding workers' rights. On the other hand, his work in the ceramic workshop of Don Manuel Bello, his mentor and a conservative bourgeois with strong Catholic beliefs, brings him closer to an environment where wealth and creative innovation prevail.

Thus, seduced by the tempting offers of a bourgeoisie willing to buy his work and his conscience, Dalmau will have to find his true path, as a man and as an artist, and move away from nights of wine and drugs to discover what truly matters to him: his values, his essence, the love of a brave and determined woman and, above all, those paintings that spring from his imagination and capture on canvas the most miserable souls wandering through the streets of a city agitated by the germ of rebellion.

With The Painter of Souls, Ildefonso Falcones offers us the powerful story of a turbulent era while providing us with an exciting plot where love, passion for art, the struggle for ideals and revenge are masterfully combined to recreate a Barcelona, once sober and gray, that is now heading towards a bright future where color and hope are beginning to spread through its houses and streets.

Critics have said:
"Fast and dizzying in its plot, it also sensationally describes how our city was built, the class struggle or the struggle between architectural styles. It hooks from the first page. Ildefonso Falcones is the best historical novelist in Spain this century, as simple and categorical as that."
José Mª Fuster-Fabra, La Razón Cataluña

"Very well-developed characters and precise, clear and somewhat archaic information about a moment that fascinates the reader: pleasure and learning at the same time [...] The Painter of Souls unfolds with all its power of fascination. Who can resist taking a bite?"
Juan Ángel Juristo, Abc Cultural