Bogdan Hrib's Blog - Posts Tagged "resilience"
Resilience. A novel. Some confessions...
I Was Blackmailed into Writing Crime Fiction…
Honestly, I’m not joking! The story started in 2004-2005, when I was trying to put together a Mystery and Thriller anthology in my day job as an editor at Tritonic Books in Romania. I had several translation contracts in place, but it was hard to find any Romanian authors. I’d been an avid reader of crime fiction since childhood. Even during Communist times, we had access to the classics like Agatha Christie, Chandler, Hammet or Edgar Wallace, and after 1990 dozens if not hundreds of books in the genre were published, as if to make up for the those years when the book world was controlled by the state.
So Hrib the editor asked Hrib the potential author very earnestly if he could write a Romanian crime novel. Why not? But I needed a spark to get started.
In those days, Romanians were very keen to go to the Greek seaside in summer: good prices, nice food, beautiful beaches. While my daughter was fast asleep, I would rush to the local café early in the morning, before the owner had even managed to sweep the floor properly. He would make me a nice strong coffee. Then another one. After a couple of days, he got used to me. And I ended up with two large notebooks containing a crime story taking place in Greece (obviously), but also in Romania, Austria and France.
The biggest problem I had was deciding who should be my main protagonist. I’d read far too many crime novels featuring a cop or a private eye. I wanted something different: part civilian, part investigative journalist, a bit of a busybody. No Superman, no Bond, perhaps a sort of Romanian Philip Marlowe. But what would an investigator from the Balkans be like? By no means as heroic as Jack Reacher, nor as deep in thought as Wallander. Perhaps Montalbano would be a closer fit – after all, Romanians love their food nearly as much as the Italians. (...)
Honestly, I’m not joking! The story started in 2004-2005, when I was trying to put together a Mystery and Thriller anthology in my day job as an editor at Tritonic Books in Romania. I had several translation contracts in place, but it was hard to find any Romanian authors. I’d been an avid reader of crime fiction since childhood. Even during Communist times, we had access to the classics like Agatha Christie, Chandler, Hammet or Edgar Wallace, and after 1990 dozens if not hundreds of books in the genre were published, as if to make up for the those years when the book world was controlled by the state.
So Hrib the editor asked Hrib the potential author very earnestly if he could write a Romanian crime novel. Why not? But I needed a spark to get started.
In those days, Romanians were very keen to go to the Greek seaside in summer: good prices, nice food, beautiful beaches. While my daughter was fast asleep, I would rush to the local café early in the morning, before the owner had even managed to sweep the floor properly. He would make me a nice strong coffee. Then another one. After a couple of days, he got used to me. And I ended up with two large notebooks containing a crime story taking place in Greece (obviously), but also in Romania, Austria and France.
The biggest problem I had was deciding who should be my main protagonist. I’d read far too many crime novels featuring a cop or a private eye. I wanted something different: part civilian, part investigative journalist, a bit of a busybody. No Superman, no Bond, perhaps a sort of Romanian Philip Marlowe. But what would an investigator from the Balkans be like? By no means as heroic as Jack Reacher, nor as deep in thought as Wallander. Perhaps Montalbano would be a closer fit – after all, Romanians love their food nearly as much as the Italians. (...)
