2010:
The Darkest Room by Johan Theorin won the Crime Writers' Association's International Dagger award for a crime novel that has been translated into English, the Guardian reported. Judges called the novel "impossible to reduce... to ghost story, a police procedural or a gothic tale." Theorin bested a shortlist that included Stieg Larsson's The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest, Tonino Benacquista's Badfellas, Andrea Camilleri's August Heat, Arnaldur Indridason's Hypothermia and Deon Meyer's Thirteen Hours.
2009:
Fred Vargas holds off Scandinavians at Dagger awards
The Darkest Room by Johan Theorin won the Crime Writers' Association's International Dagger award for a crime novel that has been translated into English, the Guardian reported. Judges called the novel "impossible to reduce... to ghost story, a police procedural or a gothic tale." Theorin bested a shortlist that included Stieg Larsson's The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest, Tonino Benacquista's Badfellas, Andrea Camilleri's August Heat, Arnaldur Indridason's Hypothermia and Deon Meyer's Thirteen Hours.
2009:
Fred Vargas holds off Scandinavians at Dagger awards
French author bucks hegemony of northern European writers to win Crime Writers' Association prize with The Chalk Circle Man
- guardian.co.uk, Thursday 16 July 2009 15.52 BST
Scandinavian crime fiction might be all the rage in the book charts but French writer Fred Vargas has seen off competition from a cluster of Nordic authors to take the Crime Writers' Association's International Dagger award.
Vargas, who has won the prize in three out of the last four years, took the £1,000 award for the first in her series of Adamsberg novels, The Chalk Circle Man. It took the prize ahead of three Swedish crime novels – including Steig Larsson's bestselling The Girl Who Played With Fire – one Norwegian, and one Icelandic novel. A bestselling author in France as well as a medieval archaeologist, Fred Vargas is the pseudonym of Frédérique Audoin-Rouzeau. Her translator, Sîan Reynolds, won £500.
Published in France as L'Homme aux cercles bleu, it follows the story of unorthodox policeman Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg as strange blue chalk circles start to appear on the pavements of Paris, containing increasingly strange objects, from a pigeon's foot to a doll's head. The news is covered with wry amusement by the press, but Adamsberg is uneasy, and soon the body of a woman who has been brutally murdered is found in one of the circles. Judges said the book was "a remarkable demonstration of Vargas's ability to open with an odd event and follow it into an unhappy past".
The CWA caused controversy in 2005 when it took the decision to bar foreign language authors from competing for its top award, after the £3,000 Golden Dagger was won by translated novels in three out of eight years. It restricted the prize to books originally written in English, establishing the International Dagger to reward foreign works.
Yesterday evening also saw the CWA announce the winner of the £1,500 Dagger in the Library prize, which goes to a body of work rather than a single title and was this year won by Colin Cotterill, putting him in the company of previous winners Stuart McBride, Craig Russell and Alexander McCall Smith. The £500 Debut Dagger for new writing went to Canadian writer Catherine O'Keefe for The Pathologist – "an uncomfortable, sophisticated read that also manages to be suspenseful", according to the judges – while Sean Chercover's One Serving of Bad Luck took the £1,500 short story prize with a tale judges said provided "a new take on the private eye".
Vargas, who has won the prize in three out of the last four years, took the £1,000 award for the first in her series of Adamsberg novels, The Chalk Circle Man. It took the prize ahead of three Swedish crime novels – including Steig Larsson's bestselling The Girl Who Played With Fire – one Norwegian, and one Icelandic novel. A bestselling author in France as well as a medieval archaeologist, Fred Vargas is the pseudonym of Frédérique Audoin-Rouzeau. Her translator, Sîan Reynolds, won £500.
Published in France as L'Homme aux cercles bleu, it follows the story of unorthodox policeman Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg as strange blue chalk circles start to appear on the pavements of Paris, containing increasingly strange objects, from a pigeon's foot to a doll's head. The news is covered with wry amusement by the press, but Adamsberg is uneasy, and soon the body of a woman who has been brutally murdered is found in one of the circles. Judges said the book was "a remarkable demonstration of Vargas's ability to open with an odd event and follow it into an unhappy past".
The CWA caused controversy in 2005 when it took the decision to bar foreign language authors from competing for its top award, after the £3,000 Golden Dagger was won by translated novels in three out of eight years. It restricted the prize to books originally written in English, establishing the International Dagger to reward foreign works.
Yesterday evening also saw the CWA announce the winner of the £1,500 Dagger in the Library prize, which goes to a body of work rather than a single title and was this year won by Colin Cotterill, putting him in the company of previous winners Stuart McBride, Craig Russell and Alexander McCall Smith. The £500 Debut Dagger for new writing went to Canadian writer Catherine O'Keefe for The Pathologist – "an uncomfortable, sophisticated read that also manages to be suspenseful", according to the judges – while Sean Chercover's One Serving of Bad Luck took the £1,500 short story prize with a tale judges said provided "a new take on the private eye".
