What Spaniards read
From time to time to time, I like to post about the crime fiction available to readers in other countries.
An article from Spain's El Pais newspaper that I mentioned in my most recent comment gives a snap shot of the novelas negras that were hot in Spain a few years ago. It's an interesting list, with current writers, classic writers, Americans, Canadians, Spaniards, Brazilians and others along with such usual Detectives Beyond Borders suspects as Andrea Camilleri and Friedrich Glauser. There are also the inevitable author or two who have yet to be translated into English.
The list is worth a browse even if you don't read Spanish. You can still recognize the authors' names and get, if not a taste of Spain, then at least an idea of Spanish readers' tastes. (Hat tip to Detectives literarios.)
© Peter Rozovsky 2007
Technorati tags:
international crime fiction
An article from Spain's El Pais newspaper that I mentioned in my most recent comment gives a snap shot of the novelas negras that were hot in Spain a few years ago. It's an interesting list, with current writers, classic writers, Americans, Canadians, Spaniards, Brazilians and others along with such usual Detectives Beyond Borders suspects as Andrea Camilleri and Friedrich Glauser. There are also the inevitable author or two who have yet to be translated into English.
The list is worth a browse even if you don't read Spanish. You can still recognize the authors' names and get, if not a taste of Spain, then at least an idea of Spanish readers' tastes. (Hat tip to Detectives literarios.)
© Peter Rozovsky 2007
Technorati tags:
international crime fiction
Labels: International crime fiction, translation
posted by Peter Rozovsky at 2:44 AM
19 Comments:
Gracias. ? Donde’ encuentras las horas para leyer tanto? Pero, más al punto, no hay nada de mi hombre Perez-Reverte en "La literatura se viste de negro". Vive senor P-R sobre el mundo de "crime fiction"? Creo que si y no, los dos.
Jim, http://nearlynothingbutnovels.blogspot.com/
Puedes explicarme el proceso de "reciprocal linking"? No me entiendo. Gracias otra vez.
Ay! Leer, no leyer. De todo modos, es terrible ser viejo.
You're welcome. No need to apologize for misspelling a Spanish infinitive. I'd need to work long and hard on my Spanish before I even worked my way up to "rudimentary."
I don't know why the creator of that list did not include Arturo Perez-Reverte. You might be right. I've read one of his books, The Seville Communion, and I enjoyed it. I'm not sure I think of it as crime fiction, though.
Not only can I not explain to you the process of reciprocal linking, I don't even knoe what reciprocal linking is. ¡Perdón!
Cez la vie! I was once OK in Spanish, but that was 30 years ago. I miss it. I just meant "how does the process of getting links back to one's blog work?" Obviously, you have a great and long established tradition on your site. For merely a week, I have been assiduously reading, writing and linking where appropriate, but nobody seems to wanna know. Patience, I suppose, and good content, are required.
Anyway, I'd say that The Nautical Chart comes close to being crime fiction. It is like Raymond Chandler got together with Henry James (probably not the perfect analogy)- the point is I'm trying not to draw a line in the sand between fiction and crime fiction.
Peter - so just how many languages can you read in? :). Since I've never official learnt any Spanish, I was pleased I could pick up some of the meaning of the article from my rusty educational background of French and Latin!
So, the question is how do you get people to notice and link to your blog? The standard advice seems good: Keep your posts short and to the point, etc., and, as in any other form of writing, write well.
The only other thing I tried to do is to spread the news as much as possible. Any time I made a post about a topic, I would do searches (Technorati, Google, Google blog search) to see who else had posted about that topic and other blogs, then post to that person's blog and invite him or her (and anyone who visited his or her blog) to look in on mine. I still do those searches, just to see who's discussing the same topics I am.
Maybe The Nautical Chart is a bit heavier on the Raymond Chandler than is The Seville Communion. But even TSC begins like a crime novel or, more accurately, like a thriller: Someone hacks into the pope's computer at the Vatican, which dispatches a crack team of investigators to find the source.
Where does a crime novel end, and a story about the consequences of a crime begin? Who can tell? You're right to be wary of drawing such lines.
Laura, I've also never officially studied Spanish. I read the article the same way you did. I was able to pick up bits and pieces through my background in French and Italian. My familiarity with the subject also helped. In addition, I make sure to learn a few words in the local language before I travel somewhere. I was, with the help and patience of an amused, unilingual hotelkeeper, able to reserve a hotel room in Seville a few years ago. Completing that little transaction was a true rush!
Speaking of Spanish, your signature, laurar, looks for all the world like a Spanish infinitive.
Only a few houses in Spain publish crime and the choices are therefore made by a small number of people. This explains why so many great names from Britain and the United States have never been published in Spain. It is puzzling, however, that the author should omit recent translations of writers such as Charles McCarry and Peter Temple.
I'll give the article's author the benefit of the doubt; the piece is four years old. It's interesting to hear, though, that just a few houses publish crime in Spain. I wonder if the Spanish and Latin American markets overlap at all. If so, there's a potentially vast reading public out there.
Hi Peter,
Thank you for coming over to my blog.I said that I would be over to take a look. I think your blog is really cool !
I have been wanting to get back into detective novels since the past years. My particular interest goes to Historically set novels and as you learned from my blog article, Ireland.
I know that you will be giving me lots of excellent reading ideas.
Come back and visit my blog anytime. Vous êtes le Bienvenue.
See you again soon.
Welcome, and thanks for the kind comments. If you're interested in crime fiction and Ireland, this is a good time. There is a big irish crime-fiction boom, and I'll provide you with three links that will help you keep track of it. Thhe first is a collection of my posts about Irish crime fiction: http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/search/label/Ireland.
The second is the Crime Always pays blog: http://crimealwayspays.blogspot.com/.
The third is the highly entertaining Critical Mick site: http://www.criticalmick.com/criticalmick.htm.
But I still want to know about those Paris-area vineyards. I know there were vineyards around and even in the city in the past. I didn't know the practice continyed.
À la prochaine!
La lectura de ese artículo de hace 4 años de Rosa Moras en El País, como muy bien decís, sirve para tener una pequeña idea de alguno de los autores que van sobresaliendo en el panorama de la literatura negra en España.
Sin embargo, no revela la situación actual.
La realidad actual, en contra de lo que piensa Conrad en su comment, es que es numerosa la cantidad de editoriales que publican novela negra y criminal; tanto editoriales de gran volumen en el mercado como pequeñas editoriales.
Otro elemento interesante a tener en cuenta es que las editoriales no sólo se nutren de la literatura anglosajona, sino que se apoyan en muchos autores de éxito en el resto del mundo, en otros idiomas.
El mercado literario en español tiene es potencialmente muy amplio ya que abarca tanto España como el resto de países de hispanoamérica; sin embargo, la realidad cultural es bien diferente en uno y otro lado del océano, con exigencias y necesidades diferenciadas.
En cuanto Pérez Reverte, yo he podido leer obras suyas como "El Maestro de esgrima", "la carta esférica", "La piel del tambor" o su serie sobre el capitán Alatriste y no me atrevo a clasificarlo como una autor de novela negra, ni siquiera novela criminal. Es más bien una autor con una fuerte base histórica, que quiere rescatar una serie de valores a través de sus personajes e historias. Para ellos es interesante seguir sus artículos semanales en una suplemento dominical.
Siempre a vuestra disposición para hacer comentarios sobre la realidad de la literatura negra y policíaca en España.
Y para comprender el artículo es conveniente practicar un poco más el español.
Thanks for your comment, Lector, and if you keep reading this blog and posting comments, I will try to learn enough to answer you in Spanish. Right now, about all I know is ¿Podria reservar una habitacion? andUn bocadillo de atun y cafe con leche, por favor. I also know that sol y ombra is more comfortable than sol for seats at Las Ventas. Articles like Rosa Moras’ will be good practice for me.
I am always interested in seeing that translated crime fiction readers in other countries read, especially when that crime fiction is unavailable in English. Is more crime fiction available in Spain now than four years ago, when Rosa Moras wrote her article? And who are the most popular Spanish and foreign crime-fiction writers in Spain?
One of the authors who at the moment are being successful within police Literature and of detectives is Lorenzo Silva, with its series on sergeant Bevilacqua and his companion Chamorro. It already has published five titles. You can consult its page Web http://www.lorenzo-silva.com/index_english.htm.
On the other hand, there are classic authors like Franciso González Ledesma, who already well is located between the Spanish authors.
I do not want to finish if to mention authors of Latin America who are having their quota of market: Amir Valle, Lunar Lorenzo, Goran Tocilovac,…
This is a small sample.
Muchos gracias por tantos nombres! It appears that crime writing in Spain has a short but interesting history and that many of the writers, understandably, deal with issues arising from the change from dictatorship to democracy. In fact, a review of El alquimista impaciente on the Lorenzo Silva site says: "it is difficult to know where detective work stops and social criticism begins."
You have given me much to investigate, read and, possibly, write about!
Hi, I´d like to introduce you to my blog. Pop up as often as you feel like.
Study Spanish Salamanca
Gracias. I think I'll take a look.
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