BITTER SWEET
Bitter Lemon Press have served up some of the most exciting new crime fiction to hit bookshelves in the last few years, DAMIEN SEAMAN talks to the funky British publishers about their criminally good writing.
By DAMIEN SEAMAN
CHUCK a dart at a map of the world and you’ll hit the hometown of a crime writer, but getting hold of the work of foreign authors has been more of a challenge … until recently.
London-based Bitter Lemon Press, formed in 2004, specializes in translating foreign works into English, and its dogged determination is starting to pay off. The company picked up Spinetingler Magazine’s first Best Publisher Award this January with a whopping 70% of votes cast, from readers grateful to see works such as Friedrich Glauser’s ‘The Chinaman’ or Rolo Diez's ‘Tequila Blue’ get their first outing in English.
Clearly, Bitter Lemon is getting something right. Says co-founder François von Hurter, ‘I think we do have a small band of fans, the result of our narrow focus on exotic crime literature.’
But, aside from the ubiquitous Scandinavian Invasion, is there an English-speaking market for foreign crime? Von Hurter thinks there is a niche: ‘We were shocked at the small proportion (3% or so) of books published in translation in the UK and the US, versus say 25-30% in France or Germany. A gap we could perhaps fill with books that we loved and that hadn’t found an Anglophone publisher.’
One factor helping to balance the company’s books is that subsidies are built into its business model. Bitter Lemon gets funding from the Arts Councils of England, Switzerland, Italy, France and Germany. Isn’t there a danger this funding could influence the publisher’s choice of writer to translate? Or compromise its independence?
‘The criteria of the different institutions are not always evident but all insist that the work must have literary merit and that the translation be of high quality,’ von Hurter says. ‘Of course if they refuse a grant request it is harder for us to go ahead, but it need not stop us.’
Von Hurter adds that the company always applies for grants ‘to compensate for the fact that we pay two authors, the original writer and the translator.’
So is it possible for Bitter Lemon Press to make money if it has to rely on subsidies? Yes it is. Von Hurter and his co-founders – brother Frédéric and friend Laurence Colchester – might have been new to publishing back in 2004, but all have years of experience in banking and investments. The company has already reached break-even in under four years – just as they predicted. And for the future?
‘We'd like to keep pushing the rate up to 10 titles a year and have not given up on the idea of publishing general fiction and even some narrative non-fiction,’ von Hurter says. ‘But we are beginners and learning every day, so diversification from our beloved crime sector will have to wait a bit.’
But what would make three experienced business people enter one of the world’s most difficult industries? ‘Publishing must be the best job in the world,’ von Hurter says. ‘Bar none.’
He adds, ‘The biggest challenge is getting your authors out on the tables. The most satisfying aspect is getting the positive feedback of traditional press and blog reviews and watching it turn into word-of-mouth that gets the books bought and read.’
Von Hurter’s favourite Bitter Lemon book? ‘“Black Ice” by Hans Werner Kettenbach. He wrote it in his late fifties and it's a wry take on German society in the explosive growth years that followed WWII. It's both a “detective” story and an absorbing character study. As good as Simenon and Highsmith.
‘My favourite Bitter Lemon author is Leonardo Padura, a lyrical Havana-based writer allowed to write uncensored crime novels. They are critical of the regime's post-revolutionary corruption yet remain magical odes to Cuba.’
REVIEWS:
'Tequila Blue' by Rolo Diez
Look who it is, man? Carlito. Well, not quite . . . not that Carlito anyway.
Carlos Hernandez, or Carlito, is a police detective fighting the no-so-good fight in a Mexico riven with corruption and cut-throat crims.
The corpse in the hotel room is but one hook Rolo Diez casts to catch the reader. Tie in gang wars, murdered brassers and corrupt politicians (is there another type?) and the mix is a heady one.
BLP’s tag line for Tequila Blue is ‘It’s not easy being a copy in Mexico city’ and Diez acrobatically makes the point with a bravura display of high-wire storytelling.
Style. Humour. Shit-hot setting and an ample dollop of sleaze makes Tequila Blue one heady cocktail.
Review by Tony Black
'Goat Song' by Chantal Pelletier
The seedy side of the City of Light, the artists and the absinth, are only the tip of the iceberg explored in Chantal Pelletier’s Goat Song.
Winner of the Grand Prix Du Roman Noir de Cognac, the novel carefully avoids all the police procedural put-offs by being a story first and bumping all the boring bureaucratic staples.
Maurice Laice is a dour Parisian who’s been there and done that, but the double killing of a male dancer and a young girl (entwined in a room off the Moulin Rouge) is enough to maintain his interest in the living as he unravels the trail.
A bleak, dark exploration of broken dreams set against the back cloth of the most beautiful city in the world, GOAT SONG is a sirens’ call to Noir fans . . . And one well worth giving in to.
Review by Tony Black
‘The Spoke’ by Friedrich Glauser
The problem with marketing an author as the ‘Swiss Simenon’ is that we already have a Simenon. A rather prolific one, at that. Do we really need another?
Going by critical reaction to Bitter Lemon Press’s Friedrich Glauser translations, the answer appears to be yes. Previous instalments in Glauser’s Sergeant Studer series have attracted raves from several big name papers in the UK and the US.
So, who was Glauser? A Swiss-German author whose works were big in the thirties, an infamous morphine and opium addict who spent time in an insane asylum. Juicy stuff, and you’d expect some of this to make its way to the page, wouldn’t you?
Well, going by ‘The Spoke’, Bitter Lemon’s latest Glauser novel, you’d be disappointed. The book opens with the corpse. So far, so Ed McBain. But from there the pace can only slacken, which is a remarkable feat for a book of some scant 180 pages.
What we get is a bit of a psychological mystery in which the phlegmatic Sergeant Studer sifts through a load of gossip and conjecture to arrive at the identity of the killer. For fans of Switzerland, I imagine this is riveting stuff. Especially as Studer is suffering from the ignominy of being a fish out of water, having discovered the body while on holiday in a part of Switzerland outside his normal jurisdiction.
To be fair, the Simenon credentials are pretty much intact. Studer, like Simenon’s Maigret, sets more store by the psychological than in cold hard fact alone. ‘“You people and your alibis!”’ Studer declares at one point. ‘“How do you expect a man who lives alone to prove he was at home?”’
For those pining for days of yore, in which people might actually say the following: ‘“I can’t stand women who paint themselves, and when they go so far as to paint their fingernails like Negro women – by the way, did you know that fashion came from Africa?’” or for those who enjoy a hint of charming anachronism, this book could be fun.
But, I must admit, I never really cared whodunit.
Review by Damien Seaman
‘Crimini’ edited by editor Giancarlo De Cataldo
Italians and crime. Is there – not to put too fine a point on it – a more apt pairing than this? Why, the Italians practically invented crime, right? Think of ‘The Godfather’. Oh right, Sicilians. In America. Fair point.
Okay, so the Italian link to crime is a facile one, but it strikes a chord, and the ‘Crimini’ collection of crime stories from Bitter Lemon Press is a good way to get to know how Italians view their own crimes and criminals. Without that Mario Puzo filter.
The majority of Anglophone readers will be unfamiliar with the majority of authors in this collection, though Massimo Carlotto made a splash last year with his ‘The Goodbye Kiss’. Curiously, Carlotto’s is one of the least convincing stories in ‘Crimini’, the one that feels the most dashed off.
Generally however, the quality is high, with common themes of corruption, immigration, organised crime and the drudgery of police work shining through. As editor Giancarlo De Cataldo says in his introduction, ‘Immigrants are the new raw material of stories.’ And while I might disagree with his contention that ‘the authors of Italian noir have been the first to realise this’ I certainly agree with him that ‘they have done so with great flair.’
And for those of us who like our national stereotypes confirmed, it is worth pointing out there is a fair amount of sex or at least sexual attraction going on in these pages. Sometimes with unintended comic effect.
Full marks to the Bitter Lemon people on this one, as the standard of translation -- by Andrew Brown -- is very high. Not once did I feel I might have missed some subtle nuance or cultural reference because I wasn’t reading the book in Italian. The translation has a strong British bias, with police ranks, for example, matching their UK equivalents. This helps bring the stories to life within a strong English idiom, but could prove a little jarring for non-Brits.
Review by Damien Seaman
DAMIEN SEAMAN, one-time political reporter, editor, security guard, factory worker and supermarket management trainee, has lived in London, Brussels, Benghazi and Nottingham, 2007's UK murder capital. He currently lives in Berlin. More of his crime fiction has featured in Noir Originals and Spinetingler Magazine. He finds emails a pleasant distraction if youve got time on your hands: damien.seaman@web.de
Read Damien's Pusher short story ... here
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