The latest addition to my website is Eduardo Mendoza‘s La ciudad de los prodigios (The City of Marvels). This is something of an epic novel, following both the story of the city of Barcelona from the 1888 Barcelona Universal Exposition to the 1929 Barcelona International Exposition as well as following the story of Onofre Bouvila. Bouvila comes to Barcelona in 1887 to make his fortune and will end up the richest man in Spain and, possibly, in the world. While we can admire his resourcefulness, he is a very flawed human being. He is ruthless, cruel, ambitious and violent. As predicted by a fortune-teller, there are three women in his life and none of three comes out of their contact with him particularly well. Mendoza tells a fine tale about his beloved Barcelona, as we follow its history in some detail during a period when it is growing and changing, but it is Bouvila and his rise that makes the novel.