Next Nordic Noir event: CABIN FEVER

Wednesday 22 February 2012, 6pm, Grant Museum of Zoology, Rockefeller Building, 21 University Street,
London WC1E 6DE

As any Norwegian crime aficionado knows, all those forests, mountains and cabins make a spine-chilling backdrop to the thriller tradition. For this Nordic Noir event, Visiting Professor Ellen Rees (University of Oslo) leads us into the Norwegian woods and back to the early days of crime and horror fiction. Ellen will screen the classic Norwegian thriller The Lake of the Dead (De dødes tjern, 1958, 75 mins) and explain how the forest cabin has become a classic location for crime and horror fiction and film. We’ll also hear about annual Easter crimewave in Norway. And all of this takes place over a glass or two of wine in the spookily atmospheric surroundings of the UCL Grant Museum of Zoology. Shiver.
This event is free but spaces are limited. Please book your place at this link.

Cabin Fever screening and talk will be held at the Grant Museum of Zoology

Gunnar Staalesen visits London

This coming London event will surely interest the Nordic Noir community. Brent Libraries presents Scandinavian Crime Month featuring a visit from Norway’s best selling and award winning crime writer Gunnar Staalesen. Staalesen will make an exclusive visit to Willesden Green Library on World Book Day, Thursday 3rd March 2011 from 7 – 9 pm (Willesden Green Library, 95 High Road, London NW10 2SF).

This is a blurb from the library’s poster:

Gunnar Staalesen has written over 20 crime novels and won several awards. Varg Veum, a private eye anti-hero, is the protagonist of 15 bestsellers and several blockbusting films in Norway. “Often compared to Raymond Chandler, Staalesen has been credited with introducing social realism into crime fiction through his critical commentary on our times. With his novels translated into 15 languages, Staalesen is another fine representative of Scandinavian crime fiction, a genre widely appreciated in Europe.” The Independent, Monday, 19 October 2009

Brent Libraries have also launched a creative writing competition, where you can compete to become the new Mankell. This is what it says on their website:

Have you got what it takes to be the next Stieg Larsson or Henning Mankell?

Enter Brent Libraries short story competition and have the chance to win a place on a creative writing course at Birkbeck, University of London or a book token from the Willesden Green Book Shop.

Interview with Norwegian crime writer Gunnar Staalesen

Here’s a link to an interview with the Norwegian crime writer Gunnar Staalesen in The Scotsman. He talks interestingly about the city of Bergen as backdrop for his fiction and about his great American heroes of crime. Have any of you read Staalesen, what do you think? Who do you think is the most interesting Norwegian crime writer?

Nordic Noir: The Story of Scandinavian Crime Fiction (BBC documentary)

Monday, 20 December @ 9pm on BBC4:

Nordic Noir on BBC4

From the BBC: “Draw the curtains and dim the lights for a chilling trip north for a documentary which investigates the success of Scandinavian crime fiction and why it exerts such a powerful hold on our imagination. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a literary blockbuster that has introduced millions of readers to the phenomenon that is Scandinavian crime fiction – yet author Stieg Larsson spent his life in the shadows and didn’t live to see any of his books published. It is one of the many mysteries the programme investigates as it travels to Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Iceland in search of the genre’s most acclaimed writers and memorable characters. It also looks at Henning Mankell’s brooding Wallander series, with actor Krister Henriksson describing the challenge of bringing the character to the screen, and it asks why so many stories have a political subtext. The programme finds out how Stieg Larsson based the bestselling Millennium trilogy on his work as an investigative journalist and reveals the unlikely source of inspiration for his most striking character, Lisbeth Salander. There are also segments on Jo Nesbo, the Norwegian rock star-turned-writer tipped to inherit Larsson’s mantle, and Karin Fossum, an author whose personal experience of murder has had a profound effect on her writing.” Visit the programme website here. This documentary also  features Dr Jakob Stougaard-Nielsen (UCL Scandinavian Studies)