BCNegra crime book festival celebrate its 10th anniversary

This year the festival blurs the line between fiction and reality, with appearances from at least two real life criminals turned crime writers.

Criminally underrated for much of its history, recently the Crime novel is undergoing a bit of a renaissance, both popularly and critically. Gone are the predictable plots, and characters thinner than the pages they’re printed on; today even the most mainstream of thrillers can be classed as literature.

None of this should come as a surprise to the people behind BCNegra, who for the last 10 years have worked tirelessly to establish the crime novel as an important literary genre in it’s own right. In the process, the weeklong festival dedicated to all things noir has become an essential part of the Barcelona’s cultural calendar.

This year the festival blurs the line between fiction and reality, with appearances from at least two real life criminals turned crime writers.

On Friday the 30th, the festival kicks off with a talk by Anne Perry, who after serving time in prison for her part in the murder of her best friends mother, herself became a best selling novelist. In a further twist, Perry’s story was the inspiration for the film Heavenly Creatures.

On Sunday, Barcelona gang leader and convicted bankrobber, Dany El Rojo will take part in a round table discussion about the dark side of the city, a subject written about in detail in his trilogy of memoirs. You can also read our interview with this living legend later in the week.

Other highlights include a discussion on the legacy of Italian Gialo, and what promises to be a revealing talk on another area of real life crime: Corruption in Football. B The full programme can be downloaded from the website link.