Me llamo Peter, plus international crime on the radio
The good folks at Yareah Magazine: Literature, arts and Myths. Literatura arte y mitos have reprinted one of my blog posts as a short article in their October issue."The detective who almost loved Berlioz" is my contribution to an issue featuring articles in English and Spanish about cover boy Emile Zola.
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Detectives Beyond Borders friend Leighton Gage takes his panel-moderation skills to blogtalkradio.com this Saturday, October 24th at 12:30 p.m. Eastern time. He'll host "Around the World in Crime Fiction," a discussion with four more D. Beyond Borders favorites: Yrsa Sigurðardóttir, Michael Stanley, Stuart Neville and Cara Black, and they'll field calls from listeners. If you miss the live broadcast, the program will be archived for a month.Tune in, click on, and support international crime fiction.
© Peter Rozovsky 2009
Labels: blogs, Cara Black, Leighton Gage, Michael Stanley, music, music in crime fiction, radio, Spain, Stuart Neville, Yrsa Sigurðardóttir
posted by Peter Rozovsky at 1:51 PM
7 Comments:
You cant hear the name Yrsa Sigurðardóttir too much on the radio, especially when the announcers havent done their homework.
I have always lived by those very words. I expect no merriment on that front from this radio show, however, because Leighton Gage does his homework. Like me, he moderated a Bouchecon panel of which Yrsa was a member, and he did not stumble as he delivered a passable version of the name. I like to think I did the same. But the look of horror and panic on some covention-goers' faces as they stuggled with the name was quite a sight.
I say do what Icelanders do, and call her "Yrsa."
Its too late now, but I would have asked her to explain how Iceland is consistently top of the table in the country list of believers in Darwinian evolution, ie. very rational, yet they are staunch believers in trolls and elves..
For example: "Magnús Skarphedinsson runs the Álfaskólinn (Icelandic Elf School) in Reykjavik. Courses teach the hidden realm and come complete with diplomas."
Adrian, if you have Skype, or if you feel like making an expensve phone call, you can phone in to Leighton's show and ask Yrsa yourself.
The question came up during Bouchercon's ”Murder at the Edge of the Map” panel, whose other panelists set their books in cultures where the spirits play a greater role in daily life than they do in Iceland. Such matters figure in the plots of Yrsa's novels, and she said that even to this day, engineers in Iceland will divert a road around a stone where elves are said to dwell.
Another holdover in Nordic cultures is a residual horror of devils. Thus curse words invoking the devil have greater effect in Icelandic or Swedish than in other languages. Translators must figure out how to deal with this.
yet they are staunch believers in trolls and elves.
You don't believe in elves? I thought all Irish believed in elves (after a pint or two)
I wonder if Ireland is the southern limit of elf settlement. At least one Irish writer whose work includes crime fiction has made a nice living off elves and other lower-echelon creatures: Eoin Colfer.
Adrian, I asked Yrsa the question on Leighton's show, which should be archived for some time. Her answer had to do with Iceland's having been a dark land and a great nation of stories and storytellers.
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