Carlos Ruiz Zafón was a Spanish novelist best known for his 2001 novel La sombra del viento (The Shadow of the Wind). The novel sold 15 million copies and was the winner of numerous awards. It was included in the list of the one hundred best books in Spanish in the last twenty-five years, made in 2007 by eighty-one Latin American and Spanish writers and critics.

Zafón had a passion for dragons, collecting over 400 dragon figurines throughout his life. He described himself as a nocturnal creature, drawn to darkness and not particularly sociable. He was born in Barcelona, a city known for its dragon motifs on many of its buildings, and considered himself one of them.