Dashiell Hammett Award: AIEP

David Llorente has won the Dashiell Hammett Award for Madrid: frontera. It was awarded last week at Semana Negra in Gijon, Spain.  The Hammett Award is given by AIEP (Asociación Internacional de Escritores Policíaco) for the best crime novel.

"Although any of the finalists would have been worthy of the prize, the jury stress that the winning novel stood out for its originality and daring style, as well as its ability to use literature as a tool for protest,” jury chairwoman and crime writer Noemí Sabugal said at a packed  news conference called to announce the prizes.

From: Black & Noir

In translation: Madrid: frontier was published in January 2016 and since then has not stopped traveling from the noir genre to science fiction, from science fiction to fantasy, from fantasy to social novel, from social novel to novel terror. No one knew where to put it. No one knew what springs of the novel gave the key of what would be his genre. The Black Week of Gijón has awarded him the Hammett. Clearly, the organization (AIEP) and the jury have understood that the black novel is elastic and versatile enough to move around the surface of other genres, enter their homes and take everything they need without having forgotten their essence of criticism Social and finger pointing to everything that begins to rot. 

FYI: In case you're confused. The North American Branch of the International Association of Crime Writers awards their Hammett Prize for a work of literary excellence in the field of crime writing by a US or Canadian author.

Dashiell Hammett Prize 2016- Gijon

The 2016 Dashiell Hammett Prize – awarded each year by the International Crime Fiction Festival, la Semana Negra de Gijón - has been bestowed to the novel Subsuelo by the Argentine writer Marcelo Luján. 

Marcelo Luján was born in Buenos Aires in 1973. His published works -- novels and collections of short stories include Flores para Irene (2004), En algún cielo (2007), El desvío (2007), La mala espera (2009), Arder en el invierno (2010), Moravia (2012), Pequeños pies ingleses (2013), Subsuelo (2015), and one dozen stories appearing in anthologies in several countries. His work has been used for public campaigns to promote reading, the love of reading, and has been translated into many other languages. His work has been recognized in Spain where he has received the following prizes: Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Ciudad de Alcalá de Henares for Narrative, Kutxa Ciudad de San Sebastián for Tales in Castilian, and Ciudad de Getafe for Crime Novels. He was runner up for the Argentinian Clarín Prize for Novels in 2005.

FYI: In case you're confused. The North American Branch of the International Association of Crime Writers awards their Hammett Prize for a work of literary excellence in the field of crime writing by a US or Canadian author.

HT: A Crime is Afoot