Tag: translation

Outstanding crime fiction from the Kingdom of Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Sweden shortlisted for the 2024 Petrona Award

On By Ewa ShermanIn Uncategorized1 Comment

Six impressive crime novels from the Kingdom of Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Sweden have been shortlisted for the 2024 Petrona Award for the Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year. The shortlist is announced today, Thursday 10th October and is as follows:


·       Anne Mette Hancock – The Collector tr. Tara F Chace (Denmark, Swift Press)

·       Jørn Lier Horst – Snow Fall tr. Anne Bruce (Norway, Michael Joseph)

·       Arnaldur Indriðason – The Girl by the Bridge tr. Philip Roughton (Iceland, Harvill Secker)

·       Jógvan Isaksen – Dead Men Dancing tr. Marita Thomsen (Faroe Islands (Kingdom of Denmark), Norvik Press)

·       Åsa Larsson – The Sins of our Fathers tr. Frank Perry (Sweden, MacLehose Press)

·       Yrsa Sigurðardottir – The Prey tr. Victoria Cribb (Iceland, Hodder & Stoughton)

The winning title will be announced on 14 November 2024.

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 Award.

The judges’ comments on the shortlist:

There were 31 entries for the 2024 Petrona Award from six countries (Kingdom of Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden). This year’s shortlist sees both the Kingdom of Denmark and Iceland represented with two novels each and Sweden and Norway with one novel each. The judges selected the shortlist from a strong pool of candidates with the shortlisted authors including Petrona Award winners Jørn Lier Horst and Yrsa Sigurðardottir. As ever, we are extremely grateful to the six 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:

Anne Mette Hancock – THE COLLECTOR translated by Tara F Chace (Denmark, Swift Press)

When ten-year-old Lukas disappears from his Copenhagen school, police investigators discover that the boy had a peculiar obsession with pareidolia: a phenomenon that makes him see faces in random things. A photo on his phone, posted just hours before his disappearance, shows an old barn door that resembles a face. Journalist Heloise Kaldan thinks she recognises the barn – but from where? When Lukas’s blood-flecked jacket is found, DNA evidence points to Thomas Strand, a former soldier suffering from severe PTSD, but then Strand turns up dead in his apartment. 

This is a complex thriller of buried secrets, that beautifully wrong-foots the reader from beginning to end.

Jørn Lier Horst – SNOW FALL translated by Anne Bruce (Norway, Michael Joseph)

The discovery of an Australian backpacker’s body in Spain prompts a group of amateur true crime detectives into action. They are scattered online around the world, attempting to solve the mystery of her death. Astri, a young Norwegian woman whose intense pursuit takes her closer than anyone else to solving the case, prepares to reveal her findings and then goes offline. When William Wisting reluctantly gets involved in the investigation, he is faced with the unusual, unorthodox investigators of varied skills and intentions, and puzzling connections.

A slow methodological approach gathers pace and pulls readers into a complex web of low-key international ties. As always Lier Horst delves deep into the psychology and motives of the characters, creating a slow-burning police procedural of empathy and human interest, firmly rooted in Norwegian society.  

Arnaldur Indriðason – THE GIRL BY THE BRIDGE translated by Philip Roughton (Iceland, Harvill Secker)

When a young woman known for drug smuggling goes missing, her elderly grandparents have no choice but to call friend of the family, retired detective Konrád. Still looking for his own father’s murderer, Konrád agrees to investigate the case, but digging into the past reveals more than he set out to discover, and a strange connection to a little girl who drowned in the Reykjavík city pond decades ago recaptures everyone’s attention.

One of Iceland’s most established authors, Indriðason skilfully interweaves different timelines along with assured characterisation, in this second book to feature Konrád.

Jógvan Isaksen – DEAD MEN DANCING translated by Marita Thomsen (Faroe Islands (Kingdom of Denmark), Norvik Press)

Similar to the story of the ancient god Prometheus, a man has been shackled to rocks and left to drown on the beach. But this time it happens on the Faroe Islands. The discovery of his body throws the local community into an unsettling chaos. As the journalist Hannis Martinsson investigates, he comes across evidence of similar deaths. He realises they are linked to the events in Klaksvik in the 1950s, and a local revolt which tore the community apart. As Martinsson digs into the past, he learns about his country’s history, and the reader has a chance to discover what makes the Faroes intriguing and spellbinding.

This is only Isaksen’s second novel to be translated into English. The contemporary Faroese crime fiction writer places his characters in the wild, beautiful, and unforgiving environment and allows them to search for truth. Dogged and uncompromising, Martinsson is a superb creation.

Åsa Larsson – THE SINS OF OUR FATHERS translated by Frank Perry (Sweden, MacLehose Press)

Rebecka Martinsson, disillusioned with her challenging job as a prosecutor, initially has no intention of looking into a fifty-year-old case involving the missing father of Swedish Olympic boxing champion, Börje Ström. Agreeing, however, to the dying wish of her forensic pathologist friend she begins to follow links when a body is found in a freezer at the house of a deceased alcoholic. The grim realities of life in the area years ago, and the current influx of criminals attracted by developments in Kiruna make for a tough investigation and difficult soul-searching, coupled with Rebecka’s own history in a foster family.

Larsson remains a wise observant social commentator and creator of a gripping, suspenseful and utterly moving series, with her eye to the past and the future, and emotive style. Delicate and  relevant humour adds hope to the fragile lives of the main characters.

Yrsa Sigurðardottir – THE PREY translated by Victoria Cribb (Iceland, Hodder & Stoughton)

Kolbeinn has been called to his old home as the new owners have uncovered some photos, and a muddied child’s shoe bearing the name ‘Salvor’. A name Kolbeinn doesn’t recognise. Soon after, his mother’s carers say that she has been asking for her daughter, Salvor.

Jóhanna is working with the search and rescue team in Höfn to find two couples from Reykjavik. Their phones’ last location, the road leading up into the highlands. In a harsh winter, the journey is treacherous, and they soon find the first body.

Hjörvar works at the Stokksnes Radar Station in the highlands. He’s alone when the phone connected to the gate rings: the first time it’s ever done so. Above the interference he can hear a child’s voice asking for her mother.

How are these events connected?

Sigurðardottir balances these three storylines, each with her trademark creeping sense of unease, in this dark and disturbing standalone.

The judges

Jackie Farrant – creator of RAVEN CRIME READS and a bookseller/ Area Commercial Support for a major book chain in the UK. Ewa Sherman – translator and writer, and blogger at NORDIC LIGHTHOUSE. The Award administrator is Karen Meek – owner of the EURO CRIME blog and website.

Further information on the history of the Award and the previous winners can be found on the Petrona Award website.

Your Absence is Darkness by Jón Kalmann Stefánsson

On By Ewa ShermanIn Uncategorized1 Comment

I am very very lucky to have some of my reviews published on the pages of European Literature Network. This particular review is available there as well but I wanted to share it on my blog, too. Here’s the link to Your Absence is Darkness. And I would absolutely recommend that you check other interesting articles written by extraordinary people who contribute #RivetingReviews.

Have you ever seen photographs of rivers and streams meandering through the rugged terrain of Iceland? The way they create their own space, take ownership of obstacles and thrive in the beautiful, unexplored countryside? As I was reading Jón Kalmann Stefánsson’s latest audacious novel Your Absence is Darkness, I was reminded of this Icelandic landscape. I fell under the spell of the storytelling, which meanders through time and locations, taking in life and death, punctuated by raw love of many kinds, and leading the reader to a perfect conclusion. 

The powerful narrative, which is both stoic and emotional in equal parts, moves at a pace dictated by both the weather and the speed at which memories come to the surface. An unnamed man finds himself awake in a church in rural Iceland. He remembers nothing – he has completely lost his bearings – but he knows the presence of a stranger makes him feel uncomfortable. 

This mysterious shape-shifting figure will accompany him on a journey of discovery. First a local woman helps him reunite with his sister. Then, as he listens to her stories about previous generations, he slowly submerges himself in a history that spans centuries, telling tales of the people who have loved, lost, fought, survived and died in the isolated, windswept farms and small villages on the Snæfellsnes Peninsula in western Iceland, whose stunning, unforgiving landscape has been influencing the ordinary lives of its inhabitants for centuries. 

As the narrator begins to question this correlation between the natural environment and the economic situation of the inhabitants of these villages, which have changed very little over the years – ‘Blessed darkness, accursed damp – the history of Iceland?’ – we get to know the fates of the members of one particular family. Eirikur, a musician abandoned as a child by his mother, is running away from his Icelandic past, but suffers from loneliness and cannot connect with his father. A girl, chasing after the memory of one, intense blue-eyed gaze, moves from Reykjavik to the fjords. An uneducated farmer’s wife writes an essay on the earthworm, ‘the blind poet of the soil’ and unwillingly changes the course of two families’ lives. Petur, a pastor, neglects his wife, writes to a dead poet and falls in love with a stranger. An alcoholic father leaves those close to him and follows the starry night sky. We see dramatic events forcing men and women either to abandon their homes or stay firmly put, emigrate to Canada or settle for compromise, moved by love, pride or sense of duty. Just like in Iceland’s ancient sagas, the novel’s characters are bound together in a family history that spans around two hundred years.

Human tragedy links these individual stories, each of which deserves attention and patience from the reader. It seems that these characters cannot escape a brutal, often inexplicable destiny, but even as the natural world around them guides their daily existence, and even their morality, they also crave joy and a sense of belonging. Tenderness appears in the most unexpected places, humour provides some light, while Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard reminds the characters that they are loved: ‘Your memory is light, your absence darkness’.

Philip Roughton’s translation is superb, with the novel’s rhythm and tempo beautifully executed, especially when it comes to the way repetitions of words and phrases add to the overall sense of uncontrollable fate and the tensions between faith and biological fact. Stefánsson’s style – complex, intriguing, nuanced – in this translation flows like those Icelandic rivers. 

Petrona Award 2024 – Longlist

On By Ewa ShermanIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

OUTSTANDING CRIME FICTION FROM DENMARK, ICELAND, NORWAY, AND SWEDEN LONGLISTED FOR THE 2024 PETRONA AWARD

Ten crime novels from Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Sweden have made the longlist for the 2024 Petrona Award for the Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year. They are:

o   Tove Alsterdal – You Will Never Be Found tr. Alice Menzies (Sweden, Faber & Faber)

o   Anne Mette Hancock – The Collector tr. Tara F Chace (Denmark, Swift Press)

o   Jørn Lier Horst – Snow Fall tr. Anne Bruce (Norway, Michael Joseph)

o   Jørn Lier Horst and Thomas Enger – Stigma tr. Megan E Turney (Norway, Orenda Books)

o   Arnaldur Indriðason – The Girl by the Bridge tr. Philip Roughton (Iceland, Harvill Secker)

o   Jógvan Isaksen – Dead Men Dancing tr. Marita Thomsen (Faroe Islands (Denmark), Norvik Press)

o   Åsa Larsson – The Sins of our Fathers tr. Frank Perry (Sweden, MacLehose Press)

o   Lilja Sigurðardottir – White as Snow tr. Quentin Bates (Iceland, Orenda Books)

o   Yrsa Sigurðardottir – The Prey tr. Victoria Cribb (Iceland, Hodder & Stoughton)

o   Karin Smirnoff – The Girl in the Eagle’s Talons tr. Sarah Death (Sweden, MacLehose Press)

The longlist contains a mix of newer and more established authors, including previous Petrona Award winners Jørn Lier Horst and Yrsa Sigurðardottir. Both large and small publishers are represented on the longlist, with Orenda Books and MacLehose Press both having two entries, and the breakdown by country is Iceland (3), Sweden (3), Denmark (2) and Norway (2).

The shortlist will be announced on 10 October 2024.

The Petrona Award 2024 judging panel comprises Jackie Farrant, the creator of RAVEN CRIME READS and a bookseller / Area Commercial Support for a major book chain in the UK and Ewa Sherman, translator and writer, and blogger at NORDIC LIGHTHOUSE, with additional help from Sarah Ward, author, former Petrona Award judge and current CWA Crime Fiction in Translation Dagger judge. The Award administrator is Karen Meek, owner of the EURO CRIME blog and website.

The Petrona team would like to thank both our sponsor David Hicks for his continuing support of the Petrona Award and the CWA, in particular Maxim Jakubowski, for allowing Sarah to step in following the very unexpected death of our much missed judge and friend Miriam Owen.

The Petrona Award was established to celebrate the work of Maxine Clarke, one of the first online crime fiction reviewers and bloggers, who died in December 2012. Maxine, whose online persona and blog was called Petrona, was passionate about translated crime fiction but in particular that from the Scandinavian countries. 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. More information on the history of the Award and previous winners can be found at the Petrona Award website