La ciudad de los prodigios
Rights sold:
  • Arabic classic Instituto Cervantes (El Cairo)
  • Arabic Dar Altanweer
  • Catalan Edicions 62
  • Chinese  Shanghai 99 Reader’s Culture (chino simple)
  • Dutch Meulenhoff
  • French Seuil
  • Georgian Intelekti Publishers
  • German Suhrkamp
  • Italian Dea Planeta Libri
  • Korean Minumsa
  • Polish Znak
  • Portuguese Brasil: Companhia das Letras / Portugal: Porto

Previously published in:
Bulgarian Narodna Kultura
Danish Gyldendal
English Uk: Collins, Harvill / Usa: Simon & Schuster
Finnish Tammi
Greek Papyros 
Hebrew Schocken
Hungarian Europa
Icelandic Forlagid
Japanese Kokusho Kanko Kai
Lithuanian Alma Littera
Norwegian Gyldendal Norsk
Romanian Univers
Russian  Machaon
Serbian Cigoja Stampa
Slovenian Mladinska Knjiga
Swedish Norstedts
Turkish Can Yayinlari

La ciudad de los prodigios / City of Wonders

Novel , 1986

Seix Barral

Pages: 576

Eduardo Mendoza’s classic novel about the birth of Barcelona as a world city, embodied in the rise of the ambitious and unscrupulous Onofre Bouvila.

“Though historical in subject matter, this story of Catalonian enterprise and Barcelonan ambition is thoroughly contemporary in spirit” Jonathan Franzen

Stung by the realisation that his father is a fraud and a failure, Onofre Bouvila leaves a life of rural poverty to seek his fortune in Barcelona.

The year is 1888, and the Catalan capital is about to emerge from provincial obscurity to take its place amongst the great cities of the world, thanks to the upcoming Universal Exhibition.

Thanks to a tip-off from his landlord’s daughter, Onofre gets his big break distributing anarchist leaflets to workers preparing for the World Fair. From these humble beginnings, he branches out as a hair-tonic salesman, a burglar, a filmmaker, an arms smuggler and a political dealmaker, in a multifaceted career that brings him wealth and influence beyond his wildest dreams.

But, just as Barcelona’s rise makes it a haven for gangsters, crooks and spivs, vice begins to fester in Onofre’s heart. And the climax to his remarkable story will come just as a second World Fair in 1929 marks the city’s apotheosis.

"Sous la forme d'un destin cocasse et drôle, Eduardo Mendoza met en scène avec un génie de l'écriture renversant - nourri d'un humour contemplatif, jonglant entre l'absurde et le caustique - la ville de Barcelone, son histoire et ses habitants, hommes et femmes qui façonnèrent les temps modernes en supportant sur leurs larges épaules le progrès d'un siècle en marche." –Hector Chavez, Babelio