Gianrico Carofiglio: Temporary Perfections

So I've had this book, Temporary Perfections, by Italian writer Gianrico Carofiglio, on my bookshelves since May, 2013, when Italian writer Gianrico Carofiglio was at the Festival. I read his other work available in English but I never made it around to this one until this week. After finishing Elena Ferrante and craving something Italian, I zipped through my (many) unread books on my shelf and found this one. Ah, why not?! I liked the other one I read, Reasonable Doubts, so I thought I'd give this one a go.

This was at around 5pm. By 9pm, I had nearly finished it, so absorbed I was in the story that I didn't even get up from my chair except twice briefly.

Typical crime writing in many ways: a mysterious disappearance, a family in grief, a hesitant and reluctant detective/investigator (in this case, lawyer) asked to look into it after the police have failed to make any headway.

But what makes these books stand out is the sheer uniqueness of Carofiglio's hero, Attorney Guido Guerrieri. He's funny, insecure, kind of whiny at times. But still someone you root for.

This is one of the best things about my job, in my estimation: discovering all the writers I wouldn't otherwise discover. Carofiglio's events were all sold out and he was quite the star during those few days here: tall, handsome, more than one person confessed to me they had a crush on him and would ready anything of his based solely on his personal charm and attractiveness.

Though it's not Elena Ferrante, Carofiglio's book did bridge that gap by giving me a noir-ish, atmospheric Italian novel (set in Bari, not far from Naples) that was a good afternoon read.

Now back to Festival reading! More information coming soon!

Blue Met 2014: check out these off-beat events!

Check out some of these off-beat events at Blue Met 2014:

Wu Ming-yi's amazing novel

Translating Catastrophe: Environmental Writing and The Man with the Compound Eyes: one of the most interesting and innovative books I read this year in preparing for the Festival was Taiwanese writer, Wu Ming-yi's book The Man with the Compound Eyes. The book is fascinating, set in contemporary Taiwan but with echoes to folklore and more traditional storytelling. Wu is very interested in showing us the state of the environment in East Asia and Taiwan but he does it with such elegance and innovation. I read this book on a plane and I was riveted for hours to my seat. Wu will be here with his translator (and an excellent translator: I read lots of translated fiction and am often surprised at bad translations, but Darryl Sterk has a bright future ahead of him) and Yan Liang from Radio-Canada International. This event is on Saturday, May 3 at 5:30 pm at Hotel 10. Tickets are $7 and can be purchased here.

Zombies and Vampires: this will be fun. Two writers and academics will discuss the prevalence of zombies and vampires in popular culture. Why are we so fascinated with the dead/undead in movies, tv and comic books? What do these tropes say about the fears of our culture? And are they ironic portrayals meant to assuage our fears or is something else going on? This is a coffee event so the $7 ticket includes free coffee. Special bonus: Michael Enright of CBC will be at the event to add his opinion on the topic (following on a popular edition of his show recently about zombies). Tickets to this coffee event can be purchased here and the event is schedules for Saturday, May 3 at 11:30am.

Two crime writing events of note! Italian crime-writer Carlo Lucarelli writes fascinating historical crime thrillers set in Italy just after WWII. His De Luca trilogy has been highly successful and personally since crime novels often work as kinds of travelogues (as in books which introduce a country or city to a reader), I love the fact that his works are often set in the past, as if the past itself were a kind of country he is opening up to us. In the past our Italian crime events have always sold out so I'm expecting nothing less here. The other crime event is with Austrian writer, Wolf Haas, whose series has also been highly successful. Set in contemporary Austria, his novels featuring Simon Brenner are fast-paced and funny. The Crimes of Carlo Lucarelli is scheduled for Saturday, May 3 at 2:30pm at Hotel 10 and is hosted by Marianna Simeone. The Resurrection of the Bone Man is also hosted by Marianna but is scheduled for Thursday, May 1 at 5:30pm. Italian writer Carlo Lucarelli's event tickets ($10) can be bought here. And Austrian writer Wolf Haas' event tickets ($7)  can be purchased here.

One other note: all our meal events are sold out! That means no more seats left for Breakfast with Marguerite Duras (in French) nor for An Ironic Shakespeare Breakfast.

Taiwanese writer Wu Ming-yi

Leonardo Padura coming into his own...

I was so happy to see this Jon Lee Anderson piece on Leonardo Padura in the New Yorker last week. I've been writing about Padura for a while, before he even came to our Festival in 2012. His events didn't get as much buzz as I'd have liked and I was pounding the pavement with his books, trying hard to sell them and sell his events, but his participation lacked the buzz that some other events had.

This is a tricky part of programming a literary festival: of course, my job is to "sell" all the events and writers associated with the festival each year, but the public and the media seem so fickle at times, and it's not always easy to predict which authors will capture the public's imagination or interest. And every year, naturally, I have my favourite books or authors that I try hard to get the public and media interested in. It doesn't always work.

So I thought I'd take this opportunity to sell Padura again: he truly is one of the most interesting writers working today, not only in Cuba but in the Caribbean broadly. He writes these almost 19th century crime novels that present a complex and intricate view of life in modern Havana. Because his characters live in Cuba, there are no smart phones or Internet so the novels recall the past in tone and function. His novel Havana Fever shows his protagonist, Mario Conde, as he adjusts to his retirement. He becomes involved in book selling (which sets up a beautiful metaphor about the role that books play in modern life) and then comes across an article about a mysterious bolero singer who disappeared in the 1950s.

Padura has also written a more political novel (as of yet untranslated into English) as well as a book on Hemingway. As Anderson puts it in his piece, "For Cuba's intellectuals, and for its professional class, a new Padura book is as much a document as a novel, a way of understanding Cuban reality."

Gianrico Carofiglio: Italian crime-writing at its best

One aspect of running a literary Festival's programming is the opportunity to bring well-known writer to our public. But equally exciting is the chance to introduce authors that our public may not know about but should. Gianrico Carofiglio, though quite well-known in Italy, particularly Italian crime-writing circles, is one such writer.

Gianrico Carofiglio

On Friday, April 26, Marianna Simeone will interview Carofiglio on stage at Hotel 10. Carofiglio is an interesting figure: a former anti-Mafia judge, he left his judicial career and became something of a sensation: a crime writer with years of experience in Italy's notoriously bureaucratic legal system. His best-selling series featuring Prosecutor Guido Guerrieri have both a crime writing twist and legal thriller angle as well.

Bitter Lemon Press, based in the UK, specialist in international crime writing, his his main publisher in English and anyone who's interested in international writing generally or crime writing in particular should check out their website. A great tour of the world for any fans of the genre. Their crime fiction map allows you to choose the area or region you want to focus on, and they recommend books from authors in that area (personally I am fascinated with the notion of Polish crime writing though I have yet to read any).


The event is hosted by one of our favourite people, the gorgeous and always charming Marianna Simeone and is in English. Fans of crime writing, legal thrillers or even those just longing for Italian sunsets or Mediterranean cuisine: all will have a great time hearing about an established writer in a booming genre. Make an evening of it: the event starts at 5:30 on Friday, April 26 at Hotel 10. Then walk up afterwards to Amelio's (on Milton and Ste-Famille, just a few blocks from the hotel) and have a pizza to discuss...

Tickets are $10 and available here.

What I started reading in 2012....and what I will read soon...

So it's been awhile since I last wrote anything here. The holidays wore me out! And we're back now after closing up shop for a couple of weeks. I couldn't stand the thought of another "best of 2011" reading/book list, so I decided instead to start 2012 with a list of books I am reading or soon to read. Always better to look forward!

The Lost and Forgotten Languages of Shanghai: This novel, set in Shanghai in 1999, tells the story of a high-powered Shanghai business man who is injured in an explosion and loses his ability to speak Mandarin. Having spent his very early years in the US, he returned to China at age 10 and managed to forget his English, only to have it return after he is severely injured. Screaming allegory aside, the book is an interesting exploration of the frustration that is a part of losing the ability to speak, not only for the victim but for all those around the victim. The US doctor sent to work with the patient, Lijing, complicates the frustration and Lijing's recovery. The setting captures the mood of late 90s China and Shanghai in particular.For me personally, since I lived in Shanghai at this time, the references to some of the sights and sounds and places of the city in 1999 really made me nostalgic!

The Beggar's Opera by Peggy Blair is the story of a crumbling marriage, a murder in Havana and a Cuban detective who is losing his grip on reality. The flavor of Havana figures solidly in this interesting tale and the Canadian suspect is the ultimate innocent abroad. This one makes me crave Cuba in January...

Some other books:

Dirty Feet by Edem Awumey. From the mRb review: The short but dense novel recounts the story of an unlikely and undefined relationship between two migrants in Paris, both haunted by memories of their respective homes. The protagonist Askia suffers the somewhat typical fate of many immigrants: though he is well educated, he drives a cab and lives in squalor. He is also on a mission to find his lost father, who is believed to be living in Paris. One day, he meets the mysterious Olia (who happens to be his fare) – a Bulgarian fashion photographer who claims that she has photographed Askia’s father and offers to help locate the missing man.


Mister Blue by Jacques Polin. From the press release: This tender and perceptive tale explores the textures of solitude, compassion, language, fear, and the imagination. Meet Jim: a writer suffering from vivid dreams and bouts of writer's block. Meet Mister Blue, a dignified and prophetic cat and Jim's sole companion that spring on the Ile of d'Orléans...until the day they discover a copy of The Arabian Nights in a cave along the beach.

These are just the tip of the iceberg, of course, but the books I'm either halfway through or have on my nightstand to read in the next couple of weeks. I did surprisingly little reading over the break: mainly I watched movies, Japanese anime (which I'm kind of obsessed with lately), walked the dog and hung out with friends...man, time off is just what I needed before our final push to Festival time!

Crime Fiction

When I want to read in order to relax and escape the pressures of life, I read crime fiction. Ever since I was a kid and was obsessed with Sherlock Holmes (before the Internet was anything, I joined this club, The Consulting Detective, where we`d investigate cases and then `send away` for the solutions), I`ve been a huge fan of detectives, crime writing, and murder mysteries. The Mystery of a Hansom Cab (set in 19th century Melbourne) was an early favorite as was Wilkie Collins and Father Brown.

Without exception, contemporary crime writing is largely forgettable and the form is so firmly established now that though there are lots of great crime writers, there are few who do anything really fascinating with the form.

The last few days, I`ve been reading Elena Forbes and her 2010 novel Evil in Return. It`s a good read and I`ve enjoyed the pacing and the general timbre of the story. It`s forgettable though and in six months I could pick it up and read it again since I won`t remember many details.

To me what sets good crime novels apart are the settings: Sue Grafton`s books are all set in Santa Barbara; Louise Penny`s in Montreal and the Eastern Townships; Anthony Bidulka`s in Saskatoon. Reading a crime novel set in an unusual location is a good way of capturing the atmosphere of a city or region. Ernesto Mallo`s book, Needle in a Haystack, set in 1970s Argentina is a very interesting portrait of a city under the confines and fears of the Dirty War. In that sense, then, crime writing can serve as a kind of travelogue, introducing a location to a reader with the ability to show the real inner workings of a society: different classes, societal conflicts, personal conflicts, political changes, etc.

When I was in New York a couple of weeks ago, I met Teresa Solana, whose crime novels are set in Barcelona; her husband is the main English translator or Leonardo Padura, a novelist whose works are largely set in Havana. Been trying to get my hands on works by these writers, not only because they are translated (another interesting aspect of crime writing) but because the locations are interesting and make an otherwise set form slightly unusual.

I find Stieg Larsson highly overrated. The first in his Millenium trilogy is a good read. But beyond Lisbeth Salander, his characters are flat, underdeveloped, and stock to a large degree. The last two of this series, and particularly the last one, is just about unreadable in my estimation (the last two could have been cut by about 30-40% and improved). Not really sure why he has become the darling of the crime writing world as he`s simply not that great of a writer. Much ink has been spilled on this new wave of Scandinavian crime writing but the influence of this region on the genre have been minimal, it seems to me.

There must be thousands more fictional murders committed every year than real murders. Particularly since most murders are far from compelling and don`t make good fodder for a crime novel.

For a really interesting approach to crime writing, try Miyuki Miyabe. Her books, all set in Tokyo, show a segment of Japanese society that we rarely see: the underbelly, black market, characters off the grid. Her books don`t even all contain murders yet they are still highly readable and entertaining. Fascinating stuff and I wish her work were better known in the West.