The mayor of Barcelona and authors attending the First European Conference on the roman noir,
including Patrick Bard, Thierry Jonquet, Donna Leon, Francisco Gonzalez Ledesma,
Andre Martin, José Carlos Somoza, Antonio Lozano and Alicia Giménez Bartlett.
© Anna Porta Abella

 

In a hushed room in the Centre for Contemporary Culture in Barcelona, visitors were welcomed by an imposing black and white portrait of Manuel Vázquez Montalbán with a melancholy smile looking through the picture windows to the port. It was under his auspices, a year after his death, in the city with which he is indisputably linked that this conference took place; a symbolic meeting given these troubled times with the European Constitution.

Alongside these discussions, all kinds of tributes were made to Montalbán. For example, in the presence of the Mayor of Barcelona some academics, like Petros Markaris, Donna Leon and Francisco González Ledesma read texts celebrating his memory. Another more emotionally moving event was a walk around the places in Barcelona that have symbolic associations with him, as well as an intimate reading of a little known text that he published on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the appearance of Pepe Carvalho. This text shows the author and his character together creating a nostalgic and polemic assessment of their years together.

As for the rest of the discussions, if in the first workshop entitled “Roman noir and European identity” we began by considering the existence of a hypothetical European polar that reflects an even more hypothetical European identity in the possible cultural and geographical continuities, (“The Mediterranean roman noir” and “From Dublin to Moscow” were the titles of two round table discussions) what emerged was the multiplicity of concepts and practices that exist in spite of the interesting intervention of the Greek, Markaris on the Mediterranean roman noir. Although it is not unusual for organisers to choose to ask authors to speak on specific themes at conferences, the arrangement of two workshops (the second of which was “The roman noir, the new sociological novel”) which then divided into four round table discussions meant that the dialogue suffered as a result of this arrangement.

Jean-Christophe Granger © Anna Porta Abella

Each author managed as well as he could with the constraint of the imposed themes. Jean-Christophe Granger, who was asked to speak about the links between the roman noir and the cinema was in his element; José Carlos Somoza was given “the cultural polar” and in spite of his willingness he was unable to explain what the term meant as he was not sure himself; “From Francoist police to democratic police in the Spanish roman noir” was the subject for Lorenzo Silver who launched himself into a very long plea in favour of this institution, something that did not fail to set the teeth on edge of some members of the audience; Thierry Jonquet, asked to talked about “The polar as political militancy” preferred to tell, with composure, some often hilarious anecdotes; as for Jakob Arjouni, he simply forgot the theme of his talk.

However, all this was done in a warm atmosphere much to the credit of a young and enthusiastic team of organisers and some of the talks really took off: in particular that of Antonio Lozana, a writer from the Canaries, who has published two novels on immigration (Harraga and Donde mueren los rios) which are touching in the way he deals with this subject with fervour and precision. In addition, the talk of the Portuguese author, Filipa Melo, who starting from an analysis of the Portuguese roman noir very effectively placed metaphysical dread of death right at the heart of the genre. Also notable was an evening soirée in which Thierry Jonquet, Patrick Bard, Carles Quilez and Andreu Martin participated. The very unifying subject was “Sex, lies and newspapers” and the dialogue between authors and the public eventually started in an ambiance made even more relaxed by being so late.

The dialogue continued the next morning in the local libraries and in the bookshop Negra y criminal where all the authors were assembled with a glass of wine in their hand to sign their books. Above all this can be seen as a symbol of the excellent ambiance in which this festival took place, late in the evening in the many bars in the Ramblas district.