The chauffeur laments that when it rains pouring down in Paris the public television weatherman speaks of “heavy rainfall throughout France. Sorry? Here the sun shines. Fortunately, every year around this time they pay attention to a small city like ours and in some way we get our revenge.â€
“Here” is Lyon and revenge sounds most pertinent since if the focus is on it it is on the occasion of the celebration of the Quais du Polar, the most important crime novel festival in Europe, and that only in the neighboring country there are almost seventy aspirants to overshadow it.
A gastronomic benchmark in France with a special mastery in confectionery -the Lyonnaises, bien sûr!- and uniting a powerful network of Catholic universities, Lyon has a close link with crime as the headquarters of Interpol and the consecrated literary event to the bloodshed that is the Valhalla of any author, the mecca of the fan and the envy of every commissioner.
It would seem that the entire city has been infected by the “black plague”: queues to attend an eclectic program that includes talks, debates, master classes, workshops, commented screenings of films and television series…; more queues for signing copies; the architectural-historical grandeur opening its noble rooms, brimming with mirrors, gilding and stucco, for the main events (Hôtel de Ville, Opera National, Palais de la Bourse…) and schools, bookstores, museums, libraries, cinemas and restaurants organizing activities related.
The nineteenth edition, held between March 31 and April 2, has had Spain as the guest country, which has meant having a promotional showcase of the first magnitude, although in some huddles and corridors, both conductors of gossip, some They showed their surprise at the weight of the most commercial thriller (Carmen Mola, Juan Gómez Jurado, who finally could not attend when his flight was cancelled, Santiago DÃaz, Javier Castillo…) and the lack of heterogeneity that offered a more representative vision.
The words of Catherine Passion, ACER’s literary agent, also contributed to lowering the triumphalism of the Spanish delegation a bit. She pointed out that it is much easier to sell French authors to Spain than the other way around, and that both countries suffer from harmful overproduction of offer.
And since we are talking about criminal fiction, what less than a bit of controversy, a symbolic knife. Two of the heads of the cartel, VÃctor del Ãrbol -so adored that if the festival had a Procession, they would take their image out for a walk year after year- and Javier Cercas coincided in an act, and in subsequent statements to this newspaper, they exemplified two positions conflicting about the event.
While the first remarked that “here the noir genre is treated as a larger genre, they make you feel like a star, a writer with a capital letter”, the second cried out “death to crime novel festivals, just like death to those dedicated to historical novel or the romantic novel, since it supposes to put the sorts in a ghettos. Novels are good or bad, period.”
In any case, the only physical violence took place on the streets of the city, where anti-pension reform protesters burned containers, mobilizing police forces that helped the more than 90,000 festival-goers have a smoother transition. between the harshness of what is exposed in the halls and the reality out there.
PS: Among the useful information gathered by this journalist that may be worth sharing is: 1) be careful with bitcoins (recommendation of the person in charge of financial crimes at Interpol) 2) at consulate dinners they always serve creams of vegetables (Rosa Montero dixit, data not verified with the writer Carlos Zanón, invited to this edition as curator of the BCNegra Festival), and 3) the yakuza has nothing of a secret society since it has several fanzines that are They are sold in kiosks and supermarkets.
