Those Lucky Six

From a list of 37 novels entered into the competition for 2020’s Petrona Award for Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year, a shortlist of half a dozen works has been created. Those contenders were announced this morning:

• The Courier, by Kjell Ola Dahl,
translated by Don Bartlett (Orenda; Norway)
• Inborn, by Thomas Enger,
translated by Kari Dickson (Orenda; Norway)
• The Cabin, by Jørn Lier Horst,
translated by Anne Bruce (Michael Joseph; Norway)
• The Silver Road, by Stina Jackson,
translated by Susan Beard (Corvus; Sweden)
• The Absolution, by Yrsa Sigurðardóttir,
translated by Victoria Cribb (Hodder & Stoughton; Iceland)
• Little Siberia, by Antti Tuomainen,
translated by David Hackston (Orenda; Finland)

Petrona winners are customarily declared during the spring British convention CrimeFest, but this year’s victor will instead be announced on Thursday, December 3. “The winning author and the translator of the winning title will both receive a cash prize,” says a news release, “and the winning author will receive a full pass to and a guaranteed panel at CrimeFest 2022.”

This annual commendation—established back in 2013—takes its name from the blog operated by Maxine Clarke, a British editor and “champion of Scandinavian crime fiction,” who had died the year before that. The contest is open to “crime fiction in translation, either written by a Scandinavian author or set in Scandinavia, and published in the UK in the previous calendar year.”

Last year’s Petrona recipient was Norwegian author Jørn Lier Horst, who took home the honor for his novel The Katharina Code (Michael Joseph), translated by Anne Bruce.