Yet more from Semana Negra
And along with the second report by Rebecca Pawel, Denise Hamilton checks in as well!
Pawel goes first, reporting on what transpired over the course of the week:
I think it´s best to start this update in the manner of the now infamous DA VINCI CODE:
Fact: In 1605 the first part of Miguel de Cervantes´novel El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha was published in Madrid, and enjoyed instant success.
Fact: The second part of Don Quijote was not published until eleven years later, in 1616, the year Cervantes died.
Fact: In the interim, a “false” sequel to Don Quijote was published by a man named Avalleneda, cashing in on the original novel´s success.
Based on these three facts (they actually are true) Alfonso Mateo Sagasta (who has to be one of the nicest people at the Semana Negra) has written a really fun (but totally fictitious) detective novel called “Ladrones de Tinta” (literally, “Thieves of Ink”), based on the premise that Cervantes´ publisher hires a private investigator to find the mysterious Avalleneda and do something along the lines of breaking his knees (or perhaps his hands) to prevent him from stealing money that the publisher believes is rightfully his. However, Avalleneda turns out to be a cover for someone else, which leads to a mysterious plot which….ok, I haven´t finished the book, but it´s a cool premise.
Alfonso received the first annual “Premio Espartaco” (Spartacus Prize)
for historical fiction this morning at the Semana Negra for “Ladrones
de Tinta.” Let´s hope this honor helps him find an English publisher.
(I´ve been trying to think of a good English title, since “Ink Thieves”
doesn´t quite work for me. What do you all think of “Spilt Ink”?
Enough echoes of “Spilt Milk” or is it to obscure?)
Other prizes awarded late last week included the Rodolfo Walsh prize for non-fiction (given to Eduardo Monteverde for “Lo peor del horror” – The Worst of Horror), and the Spanish edition of the Dashiell Hammett Prize(given by the Spanish language chapter of the IACW, a parallel to the English language Hammett). This year´s Hammett was shared by two novels, “Penúltimo nombre de guerra” by the Argentine Raul Argemí, and “La mara” by Rafael Ramírez Heredia. (The latter author was mysteriously absent from the awards ceremony, which took place at 10:30 in the morning, in the restaurant of the Semana Negra´s main hotel, prompting some anxious questioning, and finally the announcment by Paco Ignacio Taibo II — with marvellous aplomb — “Will a member of the Semana Negra organization team please go upstairs and wake up Rafael Ramírez Heredia so that he can receive his prize?”)
Otherwise, the Semana continues winding down, with the multiple authors discussing weighty topics like the definition of the detective novel (would it be possible to write a novel with NO elements of crime fiction? demanded one author yesterday), the amount of research that should be done (and that should show) in a good historical novel, and also less weighty topics like why the U.S. doesn´t like soccer as a sport, and why you never see baby pigeons. (English science
fiction author Chris Priest started wondering about that after watching a family of ducklings. His theory is that the pigeons you see ARE babies, and that when they grow up they look like turkeys and we eat them. You see why he writes science fiction.)
Signing off in Gijón, your correspondent,
Rebecca
Hamilton offers up her take on the festival below:
Greetings from sunny Spain, where I’ve been attending the amazing Semana Negra for a week. This is one of the biggest gatherings of noir
writers in Europe and I’ve stayed up way way too late each night
chatting and drinking with noir novelists from all around the world,
especially those who have been published in Spanish.
Organizers Paco Ignacio Taibo II and Fausto Justo pull off an amazing
10 day conference in Gijon each year, which is right on the beach in Asturias, with lovely beaches and a corniche/esplanade that is a joy to
stroll around. The festival itself goes from 5 pm until 5 am each day,
and since the sun doesn’t go down until 11 pm here, we all feel giddy
and happy and energized about literature and books, though perhaps
it’s also the sidra – the hard cider they brew here. The refrain here
is that the noir novel is the social novel of today, around the world. I totally agree and have seen numerous examples of how the genre is
alive and well and being used by novelists everywhere to chronicle
their times.
It’s been a privilege to meet many fine foreign authors, some of
whom alas are not published yet in the US but write passionately about
their own societies, offering windows into various worlds. since I’m
from LA I was especially charmed by many of the Mexican noir writers,
who feel they are living in a kafkaesque surrealist world. Elmer Mendoza, for instance, lives in Culiacan, in the state of Sinaloa, and
writes about the narcotraffickers the way mario puzo wrote about the
cosa nostra.
Rolo Diez is an exiled Argentinian author living in Mexico who writes
about the Argentine dirty war and desaparecidos of his homeland.
[
James McClure]3 is a South African writer living in London who writes
police procedurals set in South Africa with a black and white detective
team trying to solve crimes under apartheid.
Rafael Ramirez Heredia is a Mexican author writing about the mara
salvatrucha, the L.A. spawned violent street gang whose members were
deported back to Central America and quickly organized a transnational
gang of terror in Guatemala, El Salvaor and Nicaragua while continuing
their violent activities in the US.
[
Anne Holt]4, a Norwegian author, writes police procedurals set in
Scandinavia with a husband and wife psychologist and detective team and
sells 500,000 copies in a land of 5 million.
There were so many authors participating. i feel so lucky to have been
invited, and everyone has been splendid. Paco Taibo II himself, who is
published in English and Spanish and is something of a national hero in
both Spain and Mexico, where his family was forced to move due to their
anti-Franco politics, organizes the entire festival with Fausto Justo,
a Cuban writer who defected 10 years ago and now lives in Gijon with
his lovely wife Cristina.
Also included in this festival are panels devoted to the graphic novel,
science fiction and historical novels. It helps if you speak spanish.
There is simultaneous translation but it sometimes sputters.
I was also thrilled to meet Mark Mills, a Brit whose very american
titled book Armagansett won the John Creasey memorial dagger for
best first novel in Britain. other highlights – meeting and hanging out
with Carolyn and Jim Hougan, who write under their own names
as well as thrillers under the pen name John Case, including THE GENESIS CODE. Mainstream
literary author Scott Spencer was there too as an observer — he is doing
a piece on Semana Negra for Travel and Leisure or Town and Countr, I kept forgetting which one. I have been a huge fan of his
since his fearless 50 page sex scene in the novel Endless Love.
Also there on panels were US science fiction writer John Kessell, Brit sci fi writers Anselm Ainsley and Christopher Priest and German Peter berling, an august personage who writes
books about 14 century Europe and the Crusades. I especially want
to read his historical novel on the ill-fated childrens; crusade. Will
some American publisher please publish him in English!