Welcome to Barcelona at the beginning of the 20th century - the heyday of modernism, the clash of ideologies, the conflict of generations, disputes are seething, blood is boiling. The young artist Dalmau Sala, in love with life, with painting, with a woman, is torn between genuine art, which requires complete dedication, and optional, but convenient crafts for the rich and indifferent, between pleasure and duty, between romance and comfort. Dalmau is looking for himself and his true path - and together with his beloved he will walk along terrible paths in the midst of the delight and horror of the world standing on the threshold of a new century. Ildefonso Falcones, a lawyer by profession, a historian by vocation, one of the greatest Spanish writers of our time, was awarded numerous prestigious awards for his first novel “Cathedral by the Sea”, including Euskadi de Plata (2006, Spain), Qué Leer (2007, Spain) and the Giovanni Boccaccio Prize (2007, Italy). Falcones' books have already sold more than 10 million copies in several dozen countries. “The Painter of Souls” is his hymn to his native Barcelona, a magnificent saga about people in the flow of historical events and a chronicle of human passions: love, revenge, loyalty to art and ideals in turbulent times, when absolutely everything changes, from politics to morality and aesthetics, history opens up to a gigantic canvas, passions create a great city, and the city decides human destinies for centuries to come. For the first time in Russian!