In
celebration of Europa Edition’s World Noir Season, UK director
of Europa Editions Daniela Petracco blogs
about Mediterranean Noir.
At
long last it’s sunny and warm outside and we can imagine – however fleetingly –
we are on the shores of the Mediterranean.
Blue skies and bright sunshine, almost as summery as Marseilles or
Naples. Bright sunshine and blue skies
can dazzle but we only need to don our shades in order to see there is a very
dark side to these sun-kissed locales.
The books in Europa’s World Noir
collection explore this dark side.
The
criminal underbelly of Marseilles, the city with the highest incidence of gun
crime in Europe, is Jean-Claude Izzo’s domain.
Izzo shot to fame overnight in France when Gallimard published the first
volume of The Marseilles Trilogy. One of
those authors lucky enough to be appreciated both by critics and the reading
public, he believed that the way to really know a city is through the crimes
that are committed there. That’s exactly
what he does for Marseille, exploring the racial and social tensions that lie
at the heart of this apparently paradisiac city, in writing that is at once
lyrical and mercilessly hard-boiled.
The Marseilles Trilogy is now available in the UK for
the first time in Howard Curtis’ exquisite translation, at the same time as
we’re reissuing the three volumes in the US.
Once you’ve read Total Chaos,
you’ll be compelled to continue with Chourmo
and Solea to following ex-cop
Fabio Montale as he travels through the city and the ruins of his career.
With
the Trilogy we are launching also a
little companion volume, Garlic, Mint
& Sweet Basil, a selection of essays and short writings, a treat for
lovers of Jean-Claude Izzo, who died prematurely in 2000.
Italian
writer Massimo Carlotto is a long-time admirer of Izzo’s writing, and also a
subscriber to the idea that a place is best known through the crimes committed
there. From the affluent North-East of
Italy, the hinterland of Venice, he is a meticulous researcher with personal
contacts from the criminal world and the police. The stories he tells in his violent, sparely
written novels, are all based on real events, true crimes that we have not yet
heard all about as they are still being investigated – or have been
successfully buried! In a region of
Italy where politics and organised crime are inextricably linked in a
merry-go-round of illegal speculation, prostitution, fraud and money laundering,
he manages to avoid the fate of Roberto Saviano – the author of Gomorra, who’s been living under police
protection since his book, and the film based on it, became an international
sensation – by keeping his stories strictly within the boundaries of
fiction.
Carlotto
is a master at creating deeply unsympathetic characters. Giorgio Pellegrini, the anti-hero of The Goodbye Kiss and of the new At the End of a Dull Day, is a truly
nasty piece of work. Violent and
misogynistic, never touched by moral considerations and utterly ruthless,
especially when his own well-being is at stake, Pellegrini is nonetheless, or
maybe precisely because of this, a compelling figure. When
the powerful politician he works for as “fixer” attempts to defraud him and put
him under the strict control of the criminal organisation “ndrangheta”, he is
quick to shrug off his relatively tranquil lifestyle in his quest for survival
and revenge, and quickly learns that murdering people is a bit like riding a
bicycle.
Also
out in May, the second book in the series The
Seasons of Commissario Ricciardi. Blood Curse by Maurizio de Giovanni is,
again in tune with the weather, the Springtime
volume. In the UK it comes after I Will Have Vengeance, published by
Hersilia Press last year and shortlisted for the International Dagger Award. In June there will be a further taste of de
Giovanni’s skills when British readers will be able to read the standalone
thriller The Crocodile, to be published by Abacus. A nice upward trajectory for this author, and
proof that fiction in translation is making inroads in the UK!
Back
to Commissario Ricciardi, this atmospheric series is set in Naples in the
1930s, and built around a central character who has the singular gift – or
rather curse – to be able to see the lingering shadows of those who have
recently died a violent death, and hear their very last thought. You would think this helpful to a police
inspector involved in a murder inquiry but those last words are often cryptic and
difficult to place in context. Blood Curse, like the previous book, is
a page turner full of local colour, much of it of a dark hue, as de Giovanni
tells the story of a city where poverty and extreme wealth face each other at
close quarters; where exponents of the camorra and grandees of the fascist
regime are often closely linked, if not the very same; and where in the
everyday scramble for something better emotions can run very high indeed.
More
about these titles in our free World Noir Reader – a selection of essays and
extracts from the novels we’re publishing this season. The digital edition of the
World Noir reader can be downloaded following these links: epub (Nook), mobi (Kindle) or PDF. Or tweet me @DanielaPetracco for a bound copy (until stocks last….). You can also contact her by email. Europa Editions may also be found on Facebook.
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