I'd never heard of de Pedrolo before. I'll look him up. Any books in
particular you recommend?
I have read Vázquez Montalbán and like him. Have you read other
Spanish noir practitioners like Andreu Martin and Juan Madrid?
One of the new voices I've heard a lot about is Edgardo Fuentes. I
know several of his novels have been translated to English. There's
also a brand new anthology of young Spanish crime authors I've been
told is pretty good:
http://crucedecables.blogspot.com/2009/03/presentacion-de-la-lista-negra-en.html
Speaking of Spanish cinema, I recently saw a very good crime film from
Spain, "La Noche de los Girasoles" (Night of the Sunflowers). The DVD
I have has English subtitles. It's available through Amazon but you'd
need a DVD player that allows for PAL.
-Gonzalo.
--- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "jacquesdebierue"
<jacquesdebierue@...> wrote:
>
> --- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "Gonzalo Baeza" <gbaeza@> wrote:
> >
> > Speaking of which, I'm reading a history of Spain's crime fiction and,
> > just like you point out, their genre offerings in the first half of
> > the 20th century were heavily influenced by France and, to a lesser
> > extent, the British procedural. Fortunately, most of these is no
> > longer true. It seems Spanish crime fiction is going through a very
> > creative period with numerous new writers and titles. It'd be
> > interesting to see if any of them are eventually translated.
> >
>
> This may have something to do with the growth of an "urban" culture
> and sensibility. Also, with the abandonment of certain harmful ideas
> about what good writing is. A classic problem in Spanish literature
> has been explaining too much (obvious in much Spanish cinema to this
> day), but I think younger generations are getting the hang of the
> concise story and of creating suspense. Unfortunately, Catalan writer
> Manual de Pedrolo, translator of hardboiled and noir writers in the
> fifties and the author of several great noirs and quite a few
> horrifying fantasies, has not had the influence he should have had in
> Spain and elsewhere. The fact that his language is not understood (or
> wanted) in the rest of Spain has a lot to do with it. What I see in
> younger authors is an eclecticism and an openness that did not exist
> before (Pedrolo and a few others excepted). We may see some real stars
> come out of this generation.
>
> Best,
>
> mrt
>
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