Laia Vilaseca

Invitado de Honor

Laia Vilaseca (Barcelona, 1981), a passionate fan of mystery, true crime and noir fiction, is a writer and journalist.
In 2021, her novel La noia del vestit blau (The Girl in the Blue Dress) was published by Rosa dels Vents after becoming a best-seller during the three years it was self-published on Amazon. This brought her to an even wider readership and established her as the breakout Catalan crime author of the year.
With Quan la neu es fon (When the Thaw Arrives), she captivated readers with a fast-paced, gripping thriller in which nature and mystery once again take centre stage, and in which her passion for true crime and suspense is more evident than ever. The novel won Best Novel of 2022 at the Lloret Negre festival.
L’Illa del Silenci (The Island of Silence) is her fourth novel, a piece of rural noir that shows that no matter how much time passes, there are deaths that cannot be overcome until justice is served.
L’udol de l’aigua (The Howl of the Water) is her fifth novel.
 

Other activities involving the participant:

Sustainable narratives

Carlos Zanón

Invitado de Honor

Carlos Zanón (Barcelona, 1966) is the author of several poetry collections, the short‑story volume Marley estaba muerto (Marley Was Dead); the chronicle volume Cien formas de romper un glaciar (One Hundred Ways to Break a Glacier) (Salamandra, 2023) and the novel, Nadie ama a un hombre bueno (Nobody Loves a Good Man); Tarde, mal y nunca (Late, Bad and Never) (Salamandra, 2019), winner of the Brigada 21 Prize for Best First Novel of the Year; No llames a casa (Don’t Call Home), winner of the Valencia Negra Prize for Best Noir Novel of the Year; Yo fui Johnny Thunders (I Was Johnny Thunders) (Salamandra, 2023), recipient of the Salamanca Negra, Novelpol and Dashiell Hammett Prizes at the Gijón Semana Negra Festival; Taxi (Salamandra, 2017); and Love Song (Salamandra, 2022). In 2019, he published Problemas de identidad (Identity Problems), a continuation of the Carvalho detective series. His narrative work has been translated into US English, German, French, Dutch, Greek and Italian. He also contributes as an essayist and critic to newspapers, magazines and cultural supplements, and since 2017 he has served as the curator of the BCNegra literary festival.

Other activities involving the participant:

Expanded noir literature
Perreo, electro, and punk in literature

Andreu Martín

Invitado de Honor

Andreu Martín, born in Barcelona in 1949, is a writer of noir and police novels. He broke into the genre in 1979 with Muts i a la gàbia, but it was the following year that he garnered acclaim with Pròtesi, which won the Círculo del Crimen Award and was adapted for the screen by Vicente Aranda. He has written several other novels in the same genre over the course of his career, many of which have earned him awards. The most notable include Si és o no és, which won the Deutscher Krimi Preis International in Germany, and Barcelona connection and L’home que tenia raó, both recognised with the prestigious Hammett Prize by the International Association of Crime Writers.
His other significant accolades include the Ateneo de Sevilla Award for Bellíssimes persones, which also received a Hammett Prize, and the Alfons el Magnànim Award for De tot cor. Beyond crime fiction, Andreu Martín has also explored genres such as erotica, in Espera, ponte así (winner of the La Sonrisa Vertical Award); sports fiction, in Hat trick, and children’s and young adult literature. In his writing for young people, he has teamed up with Jaume Ribera to create the teenage detective Flanagan, the protagonist of a well-known saga that begins with No demanis llobarro fora de temporada, which won the Spanish National Children’s and Young Adult Literature Award. An author with an extensive, wide-ranging oeuvre, Andreu Martín has made a name for himself as one of the leading voices in contemporary Catalan-language fiction.
 

Álvaro Colomer

Invitado de Honor

Writer and journalist. He is the author of a trilogy on the death of the city – La calle de los suicidios (Suicide Street) (Círculo de Lectores, 2000), Mimodrama de una ciudad muerta (Mimodrama of a Dead City) (Siruela, 2004) and Los bosques de Upsala (The Forests of Uppsala) (Alfaguara, 2009) – as well as Aunque caminen por el valle de la muerte (Even Though They Walk Through the Valley of Death) (Random House, 2017), a novel based on real events which reconstructs the Battle of Najaf (Iraq). He has also published the non-fiction works Se alquila una mujer (Woman for Hire) (MR, 2002) and Guardianes de la memoria (Guardians of Memory) (MR, 2008; Fórcola, 2020), a travel book that earned him the International Award for Excellence in Journalism. He is also the author of books for children and young adults.
After three decades contributing to a range of media outlets, he is now editorial coordinator at Zenda magazine, a regular contributor to the ‘Cultura/s’ supplement (La Vanguardia) and a frequent guest on the radio programme A vivir (Cadena Ser). He also teaches in the Master’s in Publishing at the UPF School of Management, among other roles.
 

Other activities involving the participant:

Writing to acknowledge 50 years of loyalty
Barcelona today: a transformation
Learn how to write
Sustainable narratives
The seduction of historical figures
Expanded noir literature
Tribute to Ana María Matute. Grand literature
From where one writes
Literary agencies in Barcelona