Twenty-five years ago, it would have been unthinkable that a literary festival would be dedicated to the noir genre and that it would also have a following. Today the opposite happens. It would be a mistake to talk about current literature and ignore thrillers and police and mystery stories. It is what is read the most in the whole world,” reflects Eugenio Fuentes (Montehermoso, 1958), author of the essay The Low Bottoms of the Heart.
The author will be one of the 150 guests of BCNegra, which will take place from February 5 to 11 and which, in its 19th edition, will present the Pepe Carvalho award to the Norwegian author Jo Nesbø, “in recognition of his career and contribution from Nordic authors to the noir genre”, in the words of Carlos Zanón, curator of the literary event, who yesterday, together with the Councilor for Culture Xavier Marcé, presented the programming from a clandestine cocktail bar, hidden behind a Pakistani grocery store, very close to the Basilica of Santa Maria del Mar.
It is no coincidence that the organization chose such a particular location, as it is a clear nod to the hiding places that only a few know about, such as spies. They are the ones who will mark the common thread of this black week, which will be attended by national authors, such as José Ovejero, Eduardo Mendoza or Victoria González; and internationals, such as Chris Offutt, Elaine Vilar, Alan Parks or Nesbø himself, among others.
“Geopolitics, terrorism, bloc politics and what is happening in democratic societies have made the spy, the one who lives together as one of us to betray our secrets, current and, in fact, literature is current.” reflecting. At the same time, new technologies have made us both spies and spied on at all times, with our opinions expressed on the networks or the photos we post,” said Zanón, who alluded to the table that will take place in the library. Jaume Fuster next Wednesday about Pegasus, the software capable of reading text messages, tracking calls, collecting passwords or tracking locations that put both the Government and the independence sector on alert. “There are many new ways to spy,” BCNegra reminds us. This is precisely what this year’s poster, created by Javier Olivares, tries to show.
In addition to the aforementioned library, the program will take place in two other large venues in the Catalan capital: the La Paloma theater and the Bosque cinemas. “Literature festivals should not be limited to the books themselves. This embraces the set of elements that surround this world as wide and diverse as black literature. In total there will be fifty activities that will take place, all of them free. The tables will be named after titles from novels by Graham Greene. There will be cinema, music, cabaret, exhibitions and literary routes,” advances the author of One Hundred Ways to Break a Glacier (2023).
Like every year, the literary event will feature a writer, a character and a book, which will be discussed at different tables. The first is the Japanese Seicho Matsumoto. As the protagonist, the detective Lònia Guiu, by Maria Antònia Oliver, will stand out. And as for work, the one chosen is The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963), by John Le Carré.
Whether at the hands of a spy, a police officer, a detective or a hacker, what both the organization of the festival – which will have a budget of 115,000 euros – and Fuentes see clearly is that “the noir genre is permeating the entire narrative. It’s not just me who says it, the philosopher Slavoj Zizek says it. There may be authors who do not write a canonical noir novel, but they do use elements and structures of the detective novel.”
The fact that more and more renowned authors are joining the genre allows it to “spread and acquire a prestige that it did not enjoy just two decades ago.” But, on the other hand, “there is a risk that the bubble will burst and die of success,” Fuentes worries. Is this expected to happen soon? “No one knows, but it can happen. Although I prefer to stay with the certainties. The main one is that right now he is in good health and finally has the support of critics and editorials.”
And if you are close to the summit, what else is there to choose from? “As Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, for me a great teacher, said, the great ambition of the crime novel is to be considered a novel, simply. That is to say, that it has the same literary entity as any other and that sociological, ideological and political orthopedics are dispensed with,” says the creator behind the detective Ricardo Cupido, which emerged from his mind more than twenty years ago. It is something that we are getting closer to, because “they are no longer serial novels reserved for newsstands, but rather they have a much more serious style and a more elaborate language that has allowed the genre to be elevated.”
There are many experts who consider that the rebellious and asocial Lisbeth Salander, the hacker protagonist of the literary series Millennium, by Stieg Larsson, marked a before and after, because “she is a woman with a thin build and who is no more than five feet tall. , which is far from all the protagonists that had been written up to that point,” says Fuentes, who considers that another reason why the genre has become closer to readers is that “the protagonists are increasingly more human and They have no problem showing their flaws, making it easier to identify with them. For example, the detective in some novels by J.K. Rowling is an ex-military man who lost a leg.” There are also more women, and that, “in addition to being a reflection of society, is also due to the fact that more and more authors are choosing crime novels.”
What does surprise the essayist is that, despite there being so much crime novel offering, “there is no canonical work that is used. When one talks about an adventure novel, one quickly thinks of Treasure Island. Of cavalry, in Don Quixote. In the noir genre, on the other hand, there are many titles but there is no fixed one. Who knows, maybe some young person is writing this work right now.” In any case, if that happens, it is likely that this year or the following years it will be read in the BCNegra.