Petrona Award Shortlist 2023

 

Outstanding crime fiction from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland shortlisted for the 2023 Petrona Award 

Seven impressive crime novels from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland have been shortlisted for the 2023 Petrona Award for the Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year. The shortlist is announced today, Thursday 7 September and is as follows:

Femicide by Pascal Engman tr. Michael Gallagher (Sweden, Legend Press)

The Corpse Flower by Anne Mette Hancock tr. Tara F Chace (Denmark, Swift Press)

The Axe Woman by Håkan Nesser tr. Sarah Death (Sweden, Mantle)

Land of Snow and Ashes by Petra Rautiainen tr. David Hackston (Finland, Pushkin Press)

Kalmann by Joachim B Schmidt tr. Jamie Lee Searle (Switzerland, Bitter Lemon Press)

Red as Blood by Lilja Sigurðardóttir tr. Quentin Bates (Iceland, Orenda Books)

Bitter Flowers by Gunnar Staalesen tr. Don Bartlett (Norway, Orenda Books)

The winning title will be announced on 5th October 2023.

The Petrona Award is open to crime fiction in translation, either written by a Scandinavian author or set in Scandinavia, and published in the UK in the previous calendar year.

The Petrona team would like to thank our sponsor, David Hicks, for his continued generous support of the Petrona Award. 

The judges’ comments on the shortlist:

There were 43 entries for the 2023 Petrona Award from six countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland). There were twenty-one female, nineteen male, two female/male pairs and one male/male pair of authors. The novels were translated by 22 translators and submitted by 22 publishers/imprints. 

This year’s Petrona Award shortlist sees Sweden represented with two novels and Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland with one novel each. The judges selected the shortlist from a particularly strong pool of candidates with the shortlisted titles ranging from police procedural and private investigator to historical. 

As ever, we are extremely grateful to the seven translators whose expertise and skill have allowed readers to access these outstanding examples of Scandinavian crime fiction, and to the publishers who continue to champion and support translated fiction. 

The judges’ comments on each of the shortlisted titles:

Pascal Engman - FEMICIDE tr. Michael Gallagher (Sweden, Legend Press)

FEMICIDE is a page turning, absorbing, thriller featuring Detective Vanessa Frank. A young woman is found murdered in her apartment in the same week her violent ex-boyfriend is released from prison. Meanwhile, we hear the story of Jasmina, a survivor of a recent severe sexual assault. Engman dives into the world of incels through Tom, a very believable character who is part of a weaponised gender war. 

As expected this is not a comfortable read, addressing the whole incel phenomenon which is of growing concern. The well written characters and increasingly tense plot strands keep the reader absorbed as the story comes to a pinnacle as the attacks against women escalate.

Anne Mette Hancock - THE CORPSE FLOWER tr. Tara F Chace (Denmark, Swift Press)

Journalist Heloise Kaldan is trapped in a nightmare. One of her sources has been caught lying. Then she receives a cryptic letter from Anna Kiel, wanted for murder, but not seen by anyone in three years. When the reporter who first wrote about the case is found murdered, detective Erik Schafer comes up with the first lead. Has Kiel struck again? As Kaldan starts digging deeper she realises that to tell Kiel’s story she will have to revisit her own dark past.

A dark and compelling story with echoes of Stieg Larsson's THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, this is an exceptionally strong start to the series, with a balanced blend of journalistic detection, psychological thriller and police procedural.

Håkan Nesser - THE AXE WOMAN tr. Sarah Death (Sweden, Mantle)

The fifth and final Inspector Gunnar Barbarotti novel from Håkan Nesser, sees Barbarotti returning to work after a personal tragedy and tasked with the investigation of a cold case, based on the unexplained disappearance of Arnold Morinder five years previously. Morinder's former partner Ellen Bjarnebo, who had been previously convicted of the brutal murder of her first husband, is sought by Barbarotti for more information, but she too has disappeared.

Håkan Nesser's credentials as a superior storyteller are once more in evidence in THE AXE WOMAN, with its impressive narrative arc and peerless characterisation, coupled with a perceptive translation by Sarah Death.

Petra Rautiainen - LAND OF SNOW AND ASHES tr. David Hackston (Finland, Pushkin Press)

LAND OF SNOW AND ASHES is set at a prison camp in Finnish Lapland in 1944 during the occupation by Nazi Germany, and in 1947 when journalist Inkeri arrives in remote Enontekiö on an assignment to chart the area’s social development. Inkeri gets to know the small community, discovers disturbing silenced crimes, and tries to find out what happened to her missing husband. Rautiainen weaves in the elements of Finland’s recent hidden history in the European context, and gives voice to the Sámi people, while Inkeri’s personal investigation shows the painful truths of human brutality and the cost of survival in extreme conditions. 

A harsh yet beautiful landscape adds to the mystery and allows for reflection and thought in this striking historical but contemporary novel. 

Joachim B Schmidt - KALMANN tr. Jamie Lee Searle (Switzerland, Bitter Lemon Press)

A local hotel owner and entrepreneur has gone missing, then Kalmann Odinsson discovers a pool of blood in the snow in the quiet village of Raufarhofn. Kalmann is an engaging, highly observant, neurodiverse character who sees the world his own way and who can easily become overwhelmed. He hunts and makes fermented shark and his usually quiet life in the small community falls into turmoil as the police arrive to investigate formally. 

This quirky Icelandic story quickly draws the reader in, and information is revealed slowly as the mystery is solved. KALMANN is a beautifully written, absorbing, character-driven tale set in a rich Icelandic landscape.

Lilja Sigurðardóttir - RED AS BLOOD tr. Quentin Bates (Iceland, Orenda Books)

Following the events in COLD AS HELL, the UK-based financial investigator Áróra Jónsdóttir still searches for her sister Ísafold in Iceland, now convinced she will only find her sister’s body. Teaming again with Daníel, an old family friend and a detective, she becomes involved in the murky, violent, criminal underworld when the entrepreneur Flosi’s wife gets kidnapped. 

The chilling scenery and tight plotting with unexpected twists propel the novel into the uncommon sphere of financial crime mixed with a strong sense of unease and danger. The writing is sharp, intelligent and witty, and the characters authentic. Sigurðardóttir surprises at every step with her exciting style, faultlessly brought into English by Quentin Bates. 

Gunnar Staalesen - BITTER FLOWERS tr. Don Bartlett (Norway, Orenda Books)

BITTER FLOWERS is set in Norway in the 1980s during the heated atmosphere of toxic waste environmental protests. Private investigator Varg Veum is just out of rehab for his alcoholism. The story starts with a body found under suspicious circumstances in a swimming pool. The lifestyle of the rich, their power and the privilege their money affords them comes into question.

Staalesen is an expert at making his characters just complex enough that the reader can empathise with the human condition in the majority of them. BITTER FLOWERS is finely crafted and translated giving the reader a clear sense of location and an array of vivid characters to spend their time with.

The judges

Jackie Farrant - creator of RAVEN CRIME READS and a bookseller/Area Commercial Support for a major book chain in the UK.

Miriam Owen - founder of the NORDIC NOIR blog, passionate about the arts, she moderates author panels and provides support at crime fiction festivals.

Ewa Sherman - translator and writer, and blogger at NORDIC LIGHTHOUSE

Award administrator

Karen Meek – owner of the EURO CRIME blog and website.

Further information can be found on the Petrona Award website: http://www.petronaaward.co.uk.

The Petrona Award 2015

Six high-quality crime novels from Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden have made the shortlist for the 2015 Petrona Award for the Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year, which is announced today.

They are:

THE HUMMINGBIRD by Kati Hiekkapelto tr. David Hackston (Arcadia Books; Finland)

THE HUNTING DOGS by Jørn Lier Horst tr. Anne Bruce (Sandstone Press; Norway)

REYKJAVIK NIGHTS by Arnaldur Indriðason tr. Victoria Cribb (Harvill Secker; Iceland)

THE HUMAN FLIES by Hans Olav Lahlum tr. Kari Dickson (Mantle; Norway)

FALLING FREELY, AS IF IN A DREAM by Leif G W Persson tr. Paul Norlen (Doubleday; Sweden)

THE SILENCE OF THE SEA by Yrsa Sigurðardóttir tr. Victoria Cribb (Hodder & Stoughton; Iceland)

The winning title will be announced at the annual international crime fiction event CrimeFest, held in Bristol 14-17 May 2015. The award will be presented by the Godmother of modern Scandinavian crime fiction, Maj Sjöwall, co-author with Per Wahlöö of the Martin Beck series.

The award is open to crime fiction in translation, either written by a Scandinavian author or set in Scandinavia and published in the UK in the previous calendar year.
Leading Scandinavian crime fiction expert Barry Forshaw said “The Petrona Award goes from strength to strength, with both winners and shortlisted authors representing the very finest in the Nordic Noir genre; I’m pleased to be involved.”

More information about the judges and the judges' comments on why these books were chosen can be found on the Petrona Award website.

Books to Look Forward to from Bitter Lemon Press

Every week, Roberto Marías crosses Rome on foot to arrive at his psychiatrist's office.  There, he often sits in silence, stumped by the ritual—but sometimes crucial memories come to the surface.  He remembers when he was a child and used to surf with his father.  He remembers the treacherous years he spent working as an under-cover Carabinieri, years that taught him how cynicism and corruption are not merely external influences, but also exist within us.  He has lived an intoxicating and crushing life, but now his psychiatrist's words, the hypnotic strolls through Rome, and a meeting with a woman named Emma—who like Roberto is ravaged by a profound guilt—are beginning to revive him.  Moreover, when eleven-year-old Giacomo asks Roberto to help him conquer his nightmares, Roberto at last achieves a true rebirth.  The Silence of the Wave is by Gianrico Carofiglio and is due out in September 2013.

 Film Tie-In Edition, previously published as 'Badfellas'.  The story is violent, pacy and full of black humour.  Imagine the Soprano family arriving in France, settling down in a small town in Normandy.  Fred Blake tells everyone he is writing a history of the D-Day landings.  In fact, Blake is Giovanni Manzoni, an ex-Mafia boss who grassed and is now in the FBI Witness Protection Program.  Having blown his cover a number of times in the US, the FBI finally sends him to France.  A coincidence beyond belief blows Fred's cover yet again and, with the arrival of the shooters from Newark, he is able to dive back into the violent life of crime he misses so much.  The Family/Badfellas is by Tonino Benacquista and is due to be published in October 2013.

The Man Who Loves Dogs is by Leonardo Padua and is due to be published in December 2013.  Cuban writer Iván Cárdenas Maturell meets a mysterious foreigner on a Havana beach who is always in the company of two Russian wolfhounds.  Iván quickly names him “the man who loved dogs”.  The man eventually confesses that he is actually Ramón Mercader, the man who killed Leon Trotsky in Mexico City in 1940, and that he is now living in a secret exile in Cuba after being released from jail in Mexico.  Moving seamlessly between Iván's life in Cuba, Mercader's early years in Spain and France, and Trotsky's long years of exile, The Man Who Loved Dogs is Leonardo Padura's most ambitious and brilliantly executed novel yet.  It is the story of revolutions fought and betrayed, the ways in which men's political convictions are continually tested and manipulated, and a powerful critique of the role of fear in consolidating political power

Suspicious Minds, Crime in Translation

Call for Contributions

JoSTrans, The Journal of Specialised Translation, is an electronic, peer-reviewed journal bringing non-literary translation issues to the fore. Published bi-annually, it includes articles, reviews and streamed interviews by translation scholars and professionals.

The Journal of Specialised Translation will publish a special issue on crime in translation in July 2014 (issue n°22), guest edited by Karen Seago, Jonathan Evans and Begoña Rodriguez.

Crime fiction and its translation is experiencing a boom: Scandinavian Noir and Eurocrime feature regularly on the bestseller lists and in 2005, a special prize for translated crime fiction was created after the Gold Dagger had been won by non-English language crime authors three years in a row. Mysteries, thrillers and crime series occupy a prime spot in film and on television and recent screen adaptations of classic crime fiction such as Sherlock Holmes are an indication of our continuing fascination with the genre. But it is not only in fiction that translation meets crime. The police and the courts rely heavily on public service interpreters and translators. Translation itself is criminalised in various ways, e.g. in relation to copyright infringement, legal proceedings against translators of ‘problematic’ texts and various forms of piracy. This issue aims to explore the different facets of translation and crime.

Contributions might relate to but are not limited to:

· The characteristics and challenges of translating crime fiction

· The constraints of formula fiction and how they impact on translation

· Transmedial adaptations of crime narratives

· True crime, its translation into text and across languages and cultures

· Specialist knowledge, research and documentation in crime fiction translation

· Subtitling and dubbing thrillers

· Coherence and ambiguity in crime translation

· Crime, translation and the law

· The role of translation and interpreting in criminal justice

· Translation by and for criminals

· Translation as a crime

· Translation and forensic linguistics

· The representation of translation and interpreting in crime fiction and film

We welcome contributions of full length papers (between 4k-7k words including endnotes and references), reviews (500-800 words) and shorter, more practical pieces for the Translator’s Corner section of the Journal. The journal style sheet can be downloaded fromhttp://www.jostrans.org/style. php.

All contributions will be peer-reviewed.

Please send contributions to guest editor Karen Seago at karen.seago.1@city.ac.uk with the Subject line  JoSTrans Issue 22 by November 30^th, 2013.

Selected papers from the Portsmouth Translation conference on Translation and Crime will be published in this issue of JosTrans.

The 2013 Portsmouth Translation Conference on Saturday 9 November 2013 aims to bring the different facets of translation and crime together in an interdisciplinary one-day conference, allowing exchange of ideas between translators, criminologists, interpreters, literary scholars and translation researchers.

The organisers invite proposals for 20-minute papers and 60-minute practical workshops on any area connecting crime and translation or interpreting. Enquiries and/or 300-word abstracts should be sent to translation@port.ac.uk by15 June 2013.

For more information on the Portsmouth conference and the Call for Papers, please visit the Conference Website:http://www.port.ac.uk/ research/translation/events/ translationconference/

Dr Karen Seago
Programme Director

Centre for Creative Writing, Translation and Publishing

Department of Creative Practice and Enterprise

School of Arts and Social Sciences
City University
Northampton Square
London EC1V 0HB

+44(0)20 7040 8253
Office hours: Tuesday, 5pm - 6pm
Room: College Building ALG07

MA Translating Popular Culture http://www.city.ac.uk/courses/ postgraduate/translating- popular-culture

The Journal of Specialised Translation http://www.jostrans.org

Karen Meek's Book To Die For - Involuntary Witness by Gianrico Carofiglio

Karen Meek runs Euro Crime, a website focusing on British and European crime fiction.  With a team of ten reviewers working for it, Euro Crime reviews up to nine books a week and Karen is in her fourth year as a judge for the CWA's International Dagger.  When not working on the website and its blog, Karen works in a public library.

I set up the Euro Crime website at the tail end of 2003.  Though it was to specialise in British and European crime fiction it took me a couple of years to actually have more than an academic interest in putting translated series in the correct order (see Mankell, Nesbo for examples of “out of order translation syndrome”).  In fact, I only read my first book in translation in 2004 but the one that really plunged me into the world of European crime fiction was Gianrico Carofiglio's Involuntary Witness, which I read in 2005.

Carofiglio is not only an anti-Mafia judge (a noble profession) but charming and handsome, and the kicker: he can also write very well.

Involuntary Witness, translated by Patrick Creagh in 2005, introduces his Bari-based lawyer Guido Guerrieri, the first of a currently four-book series.  My review at the time:

INVOLUNTARY WITNESS chronicles a period of change for its main character, lawyer Guido Guerrieri whilst at the same time enlightening the reader on the Italian justice system, before culminating in the trial of a Senegalese peddler who has been arrested for the murder of a young boy.

The book begins with Guido separating from his wife, which leads to a subsequent psychological illness.  He has panic attacks, suffers from insomnia and most embarrassingly for him feels like bursting into tears whilst in public.  His work suffers and his clients suffer until one client and one case enables him to start to recover.

Abdou Thiam, a schoolteacher in his home country, can earn ten times as much selling fake handbags and watches at the coastal resorts near Bari.  Abdou has been arrested for the kidnap and murder of a nine-year-old boy and the evidence against him is quite convincing even if totally circumstantial.  Guido believes he is innocent and takes the case.

Unlike in a lot of crime novels, Guido does not go out investigating and try to find the real killer instead he does his job i.e. he defends his client to the best of his ability and using logic, throws doubt on all the so called 'evidence' against his client.  The final verdict brought tears to my eyes.

I savoured INVOLUNTARY WITNESS with its spare writing, smoothly translated by Patrick Creagh.  With its strong sense of place and the heat, I felt I was there.  There is a real-time feel to the book as the main crime plot is stretched out whilst Guido is dealing with other business, romance, holidays and so on.  Guido is such a likeable and sympathetic character I just enjoyed every moment of the book and I can't wait for the next book to be translated.

Coming from reading British and American crime fiction where every character, no matter their profession, aims to be the detective this was such a refreshing change.  Guido is a lawyer, he has contacts he could be the detective but he chooses not to be.  He sticks to his strength of being a good lawyer.  He is not a traditional hero; he has many flaws, which makes him interesting.  The structure of the book is also unusual with a lengthy courtroom scene where the suspect is tried for murder.  Perhaps these factors mean the book shouldn't work but it does, superbly.  It's fascinating, absorbing and unpredictable and I foist this book on as many people as I can.