Carlos Ruiz Zafon

I'm fascinated by the period that goes from the Industrial Revolution to right after World War II. There's something about that period that's epic and tragic.

I spend a lot of time in L.A., and when it rains there you get the entire rainfall for the year in two days, raindrops the size of mangoes. And in Barcelona, the Mediterranean storms come up from the sea, thunder and lightning; it's like the end of the world.

I am a curious creature and put my finger in as many cakes as I can: history, film, technology, etc. I'm also a freak for urban history, particularly Barcelona, Paris and New York. I know more weird stuff about 19th-century Manhattan than is probably healthy.

A modern-day Dickens with a popular voice and a genius for storytelling in any genre, Stephen King has written many wonderful books.

I'm interested in everything. I don't see why Borges can't work along with Neil Gaiman, or Stephen King can't be mixed with Balzac. It's just storytelling; it's different ways of using codes and images and words and sounds.

My work as a screenwriter has influenced my fiction. Writing screenplays forces you to consider many elements regarding story structure and other narrative devices that can be used to enhance the infinitely more complex demands of a novel.