List $44.95

Written by Ildefonso Falcones - Audio book performed by Paul Michael - Unabridged Nonfiction - 18 COMPACT DISCS

Publisher, Penguin Audiobooks (May 2008)

Listen to an MP3 audio clip.

At last: The international bestseller— which has already sold nearly 2 million copies worldwide—comes to America!

Cathedral of the Sea, Ildefonso Falcones’s mesmerizing historical novel about medieval Barcelona, was Spain’s #1 bestseller for a full year. Rights have sold in thirty-two countries to date, and comparisons to Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth are being made. Who better to bring you this international sensation than Follett’s own publisher?

Cathedral of the Sea follows the fortunes of the Estanyol family, from their peasant roots to a son, Arnau, who flees the land only to realize spectacular wealth and devastating problems. During Arnau’s lifetime Barcelona becomes a city of light and darkness, dominated by the construction of the city’s great pride—the cathedral of Santa Maria del Mar—and by its shame, the deadly Inquisition. A s a young man, Arnau joins the powerful guild of stone-workers and helps to build the church with his own hands, while his best friend and adopted brother Joan studies to become a priest. When Arnau, who secretly loves a forbidden Jewish woman named Mar, is betrayed and hauled before the Inquisitor, he finds himself face-to- face with his own brother. Will he lose his life just as his beloved Cathedral of the Sea is finally completed?

An unforgettable fresco of a golden age in fourteenth-century Barcelona, Cathedral of the Sea is a story of friendship and revenge, of love and war.

About the Author Ildefonso Falcones is a well-known attorney who lives Barcelona. He found fame when his novel Il Catedral del Mar sold over a million copies and has been #1 on the Spanish bestseller lists for ten months. In Spain, he is often compared to Ken Follett and his book had drawn numerous comparisons to Follett’s masterpiece The Pillars of the Earth. Falcones has also been called “the new Dan Brown” by El Mundo. Now, Dutton brings this giant international bestseller to an American audience.