Where did the Ulster Noir explosion come from?

 
Why does N.I have so many great crime fiction writers right now? 

(I’m not including myself as part of this group by the way!)



Colin Bateman, Stuart Neville, Brian McGilloway, Gerard Brennan, Adrian McKinty, Steve Cavanagh… the list goes on and on.

We’ve now got New York Times bestsellers, multiple award winners, and bona fide crime fiction heavyweights. But why all of a sudden?

Firstly, I think it is simply that there are a lot of good writers here. We didn’t ever have only C.S Lewis anyway, and the whole island of Ireland has always had a rich wealth of literary talent. We have also had crime fiction written here before too, Maurice Leitch, for example in, decades past. Like the tourist post-Troubles boom, perhaps it is in part that writers are just having the opportunity to be ‘discovered’ much more easily. The massive increase in book publishing and e books of course is relevant too. But Northern Ireland has always had many highs for a small country- look at shipbuilding, sports, music.

I think that there is a lot of interest in Northern Ireland right now, and it is not so much about The Troubles anymore. Most of the recently successful writers are not focused on paramilitaries and I certainly have no interest in writing about them either. I think they always cast a shadow, but it is more interesting to use Northern Ireland as an interesting scenic and cultural backdrop, just like any other place. We have the usual type of crime like anywhere else too! Sometimes I get reviews that seem genuinely surprised that I write about crime, but not specifically Troubles-related crime. There is also the factor that during the seventies and eighties, there was a substantial amount of fiction set here, but written by people from the outside. This was not always very successfully done. Maybe the public are fed up of reading about it.

Is it just another flash in the pan? Is Northern Ireland just like Liverpool in the sixties, or Seattle in the nineties? I don’t think so. I hope that this is just the start of a continued appreciation of local writing talent. Perhaps it will continue to grow until it is on the same scale of the huge trend of Nordic Noir. Look at Iceland- small, cold, wet, great settings, under exposed and recently punched above its weight in football! Sound familiar?


What do you think?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Trouble with ‘The Troubles’ - 10 CRIME FICTION BOOKS TO READ FROM NORTHERN IRELAND

Image
When I was writing my latest novel, Hunted, it was the first time I had really dealt with ‘The Troubles’ in one of my books. I had always avoided it as much as possible. Coming from here, there are many reasons why that is. But it's the elephant in the room. I’m not a fan of books that are directly ‘Troubles Books’ and many are perhaps unkindly known as ‘Troubles Trash.’ I am a fan of books that reference it and offer a particular and specific perspective, and that is what I have tried to do with my new series too. Here are 10 books that deal in some way with ‘The Troubles.’ There are many other great writers from this part of the world, but this list is specifically relating to the sectarian divide that has plagued Northern Ireland and my personal favourite novels relating to it. To name a few other brilliant writers from here that aren’t on this list would include Steve Cavanagh, Claire McGowan, James Murphy, Jan Carson, Paul Waters etc. etc. etc. There are so many great writers...
Read more

ADORN THE PRESENT- A 'Prisoner' / 'Walker' Short Story

Image
  I first got into The Prisoner when I was around 10. I was on a family holiday to Wales and we stayed a few nights in a cottage in Portmeirion. Each night at '6', an episode was shown. I was immediately hooked.  For years I hunted out VHS copies until I finally had all of the episodes. I joined the Six of One fan club, searched for everything Patrick McGoohan had ever done & have been pretty obsessed ever since. So, for the heck of it, here's a Prisoner inspired short story, featuring my series character, Mick Walker.  Be Seeing You. Adorn The Present By Simon Maltman     Walker comes to with a start. He is lying on an empty beach, turquoise sea stretching out ahead of him. He scrambles to his feet. The sun is rising above the vast ocean. Walker spins around, completely disorientated.    Where am I?    Behind him on the cliff above is the outline of a beautiful Italianate village. Coloured in pastels of yellow, orange a...
Read more

HUNTING For A Story

Image
HUNTED begins with a rare copy of the ‘Proclamation of the Irish Republic’ being stolen. The whole book is about the past. I had always avoided writing about ‘The Troubles,’ but in this book, here it is- front and centre. But not completely, the story is set just afterwards. I needed there to be some distance for the story, and for me. The book is set in 1999 and the characters are looking back at their recent past. In the same way, the reader is looking back at our recent past from the vantage point of 2024. I say recent- 1999 seems not so long ago to me.  This is my eighth novel and the first one introducing these characters.  Walker has a lot about him that I can relate to and a lot that I don’t. That’s half the fun. He’s a contradiction, a n  anti-hero. But he has a lot to admire, amidst his flaws and questionable choices.  Of course  there’s some of myself in there- good and bad. There  has to  be. Not all though. He was in the IRA, then he was an...
Read more