Night begins to fall. From the cluster of windows in the towers of Vall d'Hebron emanates a white light that contrasts with the deep blue sky and transforms the Montbau neighborhood into a quintessential movie poster scene. BCNegra festivalFlyers in times of crisis, corner bars, cigarette butts lining the sidewalks, shadowy alleyways. Under the empty gaze of a sick man observing the world from his room, I am an ant on my way to the Montbau Library – Albert Pérez Baró, specializing in crime fiction. Judge, popularizer, and author specializing in the genre, Graziella Moreno, will lead a workshop to simulate how a people's trial works, a method with little tradition in our country, barely a decade old. First, a quick stop: she asks the audience if they want the event to be in Spanish or Catalan – the library's inertia leads to Catalan: bullet dodged.

For most of his professional life, Mick Herron (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1963) worked in London in the legal department of a company, proofreading academic articles, manuals, and reports on workplace discrimination and unfair dismissal. When he had time off, he wrote crime novels, but couldn't find a publisher, until he created a group of misfits who work in a run-down department where agents expelled from MI5 headquarters for one reason or another end up. With Jackson Lamb and his spies, Herron has won the most prestigious awards in the genre. The latest, the Pepe Carvalho Prize, which he received this Thursday in Barcelona, ​​where he is participating in the BCNegra festival. The British writer is popular with both critics and the public: he has sold more than four million copies, his work has been translated into some twenty languages, and he has found success on television, which has adapted his novels. Slow horses and Zoë Boehm

"We are the most important free crime fiction festival in Europe and the one with the greatest presence of international authors," states BCNegra curator Carlos Zanón at the Boqueria Market, where the 21st edition of the festival, which will take place from February 2nd to 8th, was presented. This year, one of the star guests of the program is the Italian musician and writer Vinicio Capossela, who will offer a multidisciplinary concert in the Sala Paral·lel 62. The leitmotif of this year's edition comes precisely from his work: the "bad life," which the festival has encapsulated in a single word. malavida"We have extracted it from his book Tefteria to celebrate an intense, curious, transgressive life, lived on all levels. "Those of us who love literature do so precisely because life alone is not enough for us," Zanón emphasizes.

British novelist Mick Herron (Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, 1963) is the winner of the 21st Pepe Carvalho Prize. Herron is the creator of the acclaimed series Slow horses, adapted for television as Slow horses, which narrates the adventures and misadventures of a group of losers who are part of a run-down department where agents expelled from MI5 headquarters for one reason or another end up. These spies are the antithesis of James Bond, but they are capable of saving the agency bosses' skins when things get tough. The novels are dripping with irony but are not pure entertainment: they paint a great portrait of British society, including its darker sides, and have a clear anti-fascist message.

Helene Flood (Oslo, 1982) studied psychology and specialized in violence, revictimization and post-traumatic guilt. This background is very useful when it comes to delving into crimes that occur in the closest environment, and how lies and deceptions of memory can have terrible consequences. In the novel The inheritance, which comes after The psychologist (2019) and The community (2021), the protagonist is a mother who begins to wonder if someone really killed her husband and if she herself could be in danger. Translated into Catalan by Laura Segarra, the book has been published by Columna.

Arnaldur Indridason (Reykjavik, 1961) has been one of the leading lights of contemporary Nordic crime fiction for years: he has been translated into more than forty languages, has sold more than twenty million copies of his books and is the father of Inspector Erlendur Sveinsson. The Icelandic writer has come to Barcelona to participate in the BCNegra and present his latest book, The King and the Watchmaker (RBA), where he abandons his famous detective story to travel to the 18th century. Indridason imagines an unusual encounter between the Danish monarch, Christian VII (1749-1808), and a watchmaker from an Iceland where children are dying of hunger, epidemics ravage the population, and they have to dig through metres of snow to get out of their peat huts.

The writer Mohammed Moulessehoul (Kenadsa, Algerian Sahara, 1955) used a pseudonym to publish while fighting in Algeria: Yasmina Khadra. Under this name, which she has never abandoned, she has written works such as The swallows of Kabul (Alliance), The Sirens of Baghdad (Editions 62/Alliance) or The Algiers Trilogy (Alliance). Khadra, accompanied by his wife, received the Pepe Carvalho award from BCNegra on Thursday. The writer, who lives between France, Algeria and Alicante, spent almost four decades in the army. In many of his novels he focuses on terrorism and also in the consequences of colonialism.