FABULOUS BOOKS Stefán Máni Black s Game

Transcription

1 FABULOUS BOOKS Stefán Máni Black s Game Crime Fiction

2 ABOUT THE AUTHOR Stefán Máni (b. 1970) published his first novel in 1996, Dyrnar í Svörtufjöllum, and has since published nine novels to critical acclaim. Stefán Máni s novels describe the harsh underworld in contemporary Reykjavík, and the conflicts and violence between gangs. He has twice been nominated for Nordic crime writing award the Glass Key, for The Ship and Black s Game, respectively and he received the Icelandic crime writing award, The Blood Drop, for The Ship. BIBLIOGRAPHY (selection) Crime fiction: Feigð, 2011: JPV Rights sold to Gallimard, France. Hyldýpi, 2009: JPV Ódáðahraun, 2008: JPV Skipið, 2006: JPV Australia, The Ship, 2012: Murdoch Books Denmark: Skibet, 2009: Gyldendal Germany: Das Schiff, 2009: Ullstein France: Noir Océan, 2010: Gallimard Italy: Nero Oceano, 2011: Tropea Poland: Statek, 2010: Wydawnictwo Sweden, Skeppet, 2009: Bonniers Svartur á leik, 2004: Mál og menning France: Noir Karma, 2012: Gallimard Film rights sold to ZikZak/Filmus: Black s Game (premiered in Iceland, March )

3 2 BLACK S GAME (2004) Follow the misadventures of Stefán, also TEXT known EXAMPLE as Stebbi Psycho! Young, green and barely arrived from the countryside, our hero finds employment in a seedy Reykjavík club. Luckily, the thugs running the place soon discover his driving skills and enrol him in their gang. Their services include, but aren't limited to, luxury car theft, extortion, prostitution and drug dealing. Anything goes. The protagonist Stefán believes he has finally hit it big time. But when his bosses decide to take up arms against an opposing gang, the violence unleashed on Reykjavik is unparalleled. As the dead pile up and everybody is out looking for a vanished kilo of cocaine, our hero starts questioning his decisions and thinking that everything is moving way too fast. Unfortunately, he is stuck in this fatal gear, and there are roads he must take, to the very end if necessary. A film adaptation of the book Black s Game premiered in Iceland in spring 2012, to both popular and critical acclaim. Manuscript available in French. 548 pp. REVIEWS Black s Game is a powerful and merciless novel... Not for the fainthearted. (Morgunblaðið newspaper) A must-read! [ ] exceedingly well written. (Fréttablaðið newspaper) This dark moon of an author is the new pearl of Icelandic crime writing. (France Soir) Watch out, this Icelandic author is an eruptive force that will make you forget all about those volcanos. (Marianne Magazine)

4 3 SELECTED WORK God of Emptiness (2011) Detective Hörður Grímsson sits in his car outside Litla-Hraun Prison at daybreak. At the age of seventeen, he survived an accident at sea. Two years later, he lost his parents and two younger siblings to an avalanche in a remote fishing village in Western Iceland. All this death has left Hörður an ill-tempered and pessimistic giant of a man. It has also left him perceptive in ways he'd rather do without whenever he sees a black shadow hovering in the air, he knows that, below, someone is about to die. Hörður is the kind of detective that wants to make a bad world a little better by locking some of its evil behind bars. But no one stays locked up forever. The iron gates of the prison open, and into freedom walks the big, bad brute Simon Örn Rekoja steroid-pumped monster, merciless psychopath, underworld king-pin and Hörður s personal enemy #1. Sample translation and synopsis available in English. 521 pp. REVIEWS Stefán Máni is an essential author. It wouldn't be a stretch to call him the Tarantino of Icelandic literature: powerful and possessed of great style, lunatic characters and unpredictable plots [...] Here he is simply at his best. ( What characterises the work more than anything else is power, a deep rhythm, a powerful pulse surfacing both in the subject matter and the prose, leaving the reader halfhypnotised and with a thumping heart. In this way, it evokes Stefán Máni's best book The Ship. ( With each published book, Stefán Máni becomes an even better stylist [...] The colourful past of Hörður Grímsson, the disaster at sea, the horrors of the avalanche in Súðavík, all of this is strong. The descriptions of the life and work of sailors and the police are welldone and convincing. A rough, tough and exhilarating story. (Fréttablaðið daily newspaper)

5 RIGHTS Originally published by Forlagið publishing. Rights: Nordin Agency Box Stockholm Sweden Contact Person: Anna Frankl, CONTACT The Icelandic Literature Fund Austurstræti Reykjavik Island Sagenhaftes Island Ministry of Science, Education and Culture Sölvhólsgötu Reykjavík Iceland Tel: +354 /