Forshaw Barry - Euro Noir: The Pocket Essential Guide to European Crime Fiction, Film and TV

Euro Noir by Britains leading crime fiction expert Barry Forshaw (author of Nordic Noir) examines the astonishing success of European fiction and drama. This is often edgier, grittier and more compelling than some of its British or American equivalents, and provides a highly readable guide for those wanting to look further than the obvious choices.

The sheer volume of new European writers and films is daunting but Euro Noir presents a roadmap to the territory and is the perfect travel guide to the genre. The book covers influential Italian authors such as Andrea Camilleri and Leonardo Sciascia and Mafia crime dramas Romanzo criminale and Gomorrah, along with the gruesome Gialli crime films. From France and Belgium, important writers from Maigrets creator Georges Simenon to todays Fred Vargas, cult television programmes Braquo and Spiral and films, from the classic heist movie Rififi to modern sucesses such as Hidden, Mesrine and Tell No One. German and Austrian greats are covered including Jakob Arjouni and Jan Costin Wagner, crime films including Run Lola Run and The Lives of Others.

Euro Noir also covers the best crime writing and filmmaking from Spain, Portugal, Greece, Holland and other European countries and celebrates the wide scope of European crime fiction, films and TV.

Barry Forshaws latest books are British Crime Film and Death in a Cold Climate: A Guide to Scandinavian Crime Fiction. Other work includes British Crime Writing: An Encyclopedia, The Rough Guide to Crime Fiction and Guns for Hire: The Modern Adventure Thriller, along with books on Italian cinema and the first biography of Stieg Larsson. His next books are British Gothic Cinema and a study of Thomas Harris and The Silence of the Lambs. He writes for various newspapers, edits Crime Time, and broadcasts for ITV and BBC TV documentaries. He has been Vice Chair of the Crime Writers Association.

POCKET ESSENTIALS

To all the authors, translators, publishers and filmmakers
who have talked to me during the preparation of this book.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Publishing Translated Crime Fiction

The Petrona Perspective

Crossing the Bridge with Sofia Helin

Jrn Lier Horst: Language Hero Environment

Selected Top Crime Novels by Country

Selected Top Crime Films and TV by Country

Its not just the Scandinavians. The Anglo-American domination of the crime fiction genre has been under siege by Nordic Noir for quite some time, but another juggernaut is crashing its way into the genre the astonishingly varied and exciting crime fiction streaming out of other European countries: France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece and others. Examining and celebrating this exhilarating body of criminal work, Ive tried to bring to the continental countries the enthusiasm Ive previously shown when writing about Scandinavian crime fiction. From important early writers such as Georges Simenon to more recent giants such as Andrea Camilleri, all the key names (and many new and lively talents) are here in a book Ive designed as both guide and shopping list for readers. The initial idea occurred to me a few years ago when I was filming the BBC documentary Italian Noir (and its companion, Nordic Noir ).

But the crime genre is as much about films and TV as it is about books, and Euro Noir is as much a celebration of the former as the latter. The hottest new genre on television and the big screen and the one with the most cultural respectability is crime film drama from countries other than Britain and America. ( The Sunday Times has talked about a cross-Channel crime wave.) And with new films and TV shows about to take the phenomenon to ever more stratospheric levels, even more attention will be focused on foreign crime, with its franker, more graphic treatment of violence and sexuality than the Anglo-Saxon version.

First of all, I think its important to set out the parameters of this book. Let me tell you what Euro Noir tries to do and what it doesnt try to do. The idea is to present a user-friendly, wide-ranging snapshot of the best achievements (both on the printed page and on screen) of crime not originally written (or played) in English. However, unlike my earlier Nordic Noir (where even in 160 pages it was possible to present a largely inclusive survey), such comprehensive coverage would obviously be impossible in an area which has been producing splendid work from a variety of countries for so many years and with the space available to me in Euro Noir . Ive tried to pack in as much as I can. Ive concentrated on Western Europe and Ive had to be selective, with an emphasis on the contemporary rather than the classic. Even so, you may discover that a favourite of yours is given relatively concise coverage, while someone else may receive what appears to be more generous attention. My rationale was simple. I wanted to present as varied and interesting a picture of the range of foreign crime books and films within the amount of pages available to me, and if some very familiar writers had to be dealt with more concisely in order that new and exciting writers could be given the kind of attention they have not received previously, it was a trade-off I thought worth making. As for the thorny issue of translation: no one is more aware of the inestimable value of that art than I am (as translators who know me will attest!), so I trust Ill be forgiven an occasional inconsistency in crediting these valuable professionals. Four credits I really cant miss, though, are Antonio Hill, Paul Johnston, Quentin Bates and Charles den Tex for their valuable conversations about Spain, Greece, Iceland and the Netherlands respectively.

As for the general issue of which authors and books to include, the pitfalls yawned before me. In the final analysis, I was aware that I was (in any case) on a hiding to nothing. Even when working on a massively inclusive two-volume book such as British Crime Writing: An Encyclopaedia , I knew that there were always new writers appearing (often on a weekly basis), along with a host of interesting writers from the past whose work was being exhumed. (The latter is a growing phenomenon these days, particularly with ebook initiatives.) I can only hope that readers will not find the inevitable omissions here too egregious dont forget that such omissions have at least meant that other, very worthwhile creators have been included.

Do you consider crime fiction to be a harmless diversion? And do you pack a foreign crime novel when travelling abroad to while away the time on Eurostar? In fact, if youre not paying close attention to the text, you could be missing an incisive and penetrating guide to the socio-economic and political elements of the countries youre visiting, freighted in amidst the detection and rising body count. The ever-growing success of crime fiction (other than the British/American model) is built on the awareness among readers that the best writers from Italy, Germany and elsewhere are now regarded as social commentators with quite as acute a grasp of the way their countries work as any serious journalist. (After the Breivik killings in Norway, who was the pundit most often called upon to talk about the influence of the far right in that country? It was, in fact, Norways leading crime writer, Jo Nesbo.)