INTERNATIONAL DAGGER POLLS AND FOCUS ON TRANSLATORS
Karen of Euro Crime has two polls up here: one asks "who will win the International Dagger?", and one "who do you want to win the International Dagger?"
These questions may be a bit complicated for us males who can't multitask, but as soon as I have finished reading the last two nominated books I will be over there to vote.
This is the fourth year of the International Dagger award and it is interesting to see how the translators, those lovely people who bring us non-linguists so many great books, are doing.
Sian Reynolds [translator for Fred Vargas] has four nominations and two daggers.
The team of Amanda Hopkinson and Ros Schwartz [translator for Dominique Manotti] have two nominations and one dagger.
Steven T Murray in his various disguises has four nominations [two for Karin Alvtegen and two for Stieg Larsson], while Stephen Sartarelli [Andrea Camilleri], Don Bartlett [Jo Nesbo] and Marlaine Delargy [Johan Theorin and Asa Larsson] have two each.
Steven T Murray has won the big prize a CWA Gold Dagger in 2001 for Henning Mankell's Sidetracked in the days before the International Dagger.
Nominations by country are France 6 [including 3 straight wins], Sweden 7, Italy 2, Algeria 2, Norway 2, Denmark, Spain, Switzerland, Iceland one each.
What astonishes me is that so far there has been no German or Dutch book nominated for this prize.
posted by Uriah Robinson at 9:09 AM
10 Comments:
Great post, Norman. Two very interesting ways of looking at this prize. Males not able to multitask?!
Re your last point: I am amazed that Petra Himmelsfahr's The Sinner was not nominated, it is brilliant. I also liked The Sweetness of Life by Paulus Hochgatterer, but I think is not quite up to the others you've described - also he is Austrian not German so maybe does not count.
Ice Moon by Jan Costin Wagner is an excellent little book - if I recall correctly, he's German but lives half the year in Finland.
Nevertheless, of all the translated books I've read, I think I could only identify The Sinner as a serious omission at this very high level of writing achievement. (My memory isn't very good though, so I may have forgotten some.)
I do hope it will be a Nordic winner ;)
Dorte, you have a five to one chance of a Nordic winner which added to the fact that Fred Vargas has won twice before must make her the complete outsider.
Maxine, does answering two comments in one reply count as multitasking. ;o)
I rated The Reunion by Simone Van der Vlugt very highly among my recent reads and will certainly try The Sinner. There is another Dutch writer Saskia Noort I haven't read any of her books but I just thought they might spread the nominations out a bit rather than let the Nordics dominate so much.
Both those authors are on my list, too, Norman. And I really liked Island of the Naked Women by Inger Frimansson which I read recently....just so many riches!
PS Yes, the post itself and your answers to the comments indicated good multitasking skills, Norman;-)
(I have about 6 windows open at the moment so I am at the point of multitasking confusion).
Dorte, I hope it will be a Nordic winner too!
You all might try out Sebastian Fitzek's THERAPY for a good psych thriller from Germany.
I bought THE REUNION while I was in London, haven't read it yet but I liked the beginning online.
And I'm reading Håkan Nesser now that I've met him and discovered he's such a nice guy!
Steve/Reg/Mac
I quite liked Noort's Back to the Coast and immediately bought The Dinner Club. I've read three Dutch this year now: Noort, Van Der Vlugt and Esther Verhoef. All good.
I have to say that Therapy wasn't my cup of tea.
Reg didn't translate Therapy, Maxine.
I wonder if Hakan Nesser needs more translators so that we can enjoy those Gunnar Barbarottis and the rest of the Van Veeterens before some of us are too old to focus.
We're workin' on it, Norm...
Great news Reg.
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