The Treasure of the Black Swan by Paco Roca

The Treasure of the Black Swan by Paco Roca

A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection

May 2007. When an American treasure-hunting company uncovers a shipwreck containing the greatest underwater trove ever found, the world is captivated by their discovery. But over in Spain, a group of low-level government officials surmises that the sunken ship is in fact an ancient Spanish vessel. Thus begins a legal and political thriller, pitting a group of idealistic diplomats against a rich and powerfully connected treasure hunter, in which vital cultural artifacts and hundreds of millions of dollars hang in the balance.

Cartoonist Paco Roca and writer Guillermo Corral bring a cinematic flair to this graphic novel, combining threads of Tintin-inspired seafaring adventure, political intrigue, tense courtroom drama, and, in the midst of it all, a budding romance. A gripping dramatization of a little-known, unbelievable true story of money, political power, and cultural heritage.

The Treasure of the Black Swan was adapted into an original television series, La Fortuna, starring Stanley Tucci and is scheduled to debut in the US on AMC Plus in January 2022.

Paco Roca, a Spanish author born in 1969, is part of a group of writers whose work was initially published in the groundbreaking journal El Vibora. Since then, he's published a number of graphic novels, including GOG (2000), The Lighthouse (2004), a narrative about an escaped soldier set against the backdrop of the Spanish Civil War, which won best script by the journal Notices of Tenerife, Spain's premier comic prize; Children of the Alhambra (2007), an adventure story about a painter of French nineteenth-century romanticism; and Wrinkles (2007), among others. He also worked as a writer and character designer on Wrinkles (La Tete en l'Air), an animated film adaption that won the Goya Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.