Yrsa wins crime fiction prize

27. June, 2011

Yrsa Sigurðardóttir receives the Blood Drop, awarded by the Icelandic Crime League, for the horror mystery I Remember You. The book will be Iceland's nomination for the Nordic crime fiction award The Glass Key.

BlóðdropinnBlóðdropinn (lit. The Blood Drop), the annual crime writing award of Hið íslenska glæpafélag (lit. The Icelandic Crime League), was awarded on June 21. This year's winner was Yrsa Sigurðardóttir, for her ghost story Ég man þig (lit. I Remember You). Other nominees this year included Arnaldur Indriðason, Árni Þórarinsson and Lilja Sigurðardóttir. The winner of the Blood Drop goes on to be Iceland's nomination for the Glass Key, the Nordic crime fiction prize.

In I Remember You, Yrsa gives her longtime protagonist, the lawyer Þóra, a well-earned rest, focusing on new characters instead. While accepting the award, Yrsa said that she had found it a refreshing change to write the story, which, although in part a crime novel, is more in the vein of a ghost story – a genre largely unexplored in Icelandic literature. In its verdict, the jury wrote that Yrsa's story “demonstrates her mastery of the crime genre; her ability to manipulate it creatively rather than in a formulaic manner.”

In the book, three young people decide to renovate a dilapidated old building in the remote western fjords of Iceland, and in doing so inadvertently set off a frightening course of events. At the same time, a young psychiatrist on the other side of the fjord is pulled into the investigation of a mysterious suicide, which seems to have a connection with the disappearance of his own son, which occurred three year earlier. The two plots soon converge in a story that critics have called Yrsa's best to date.

While this is the first time Yrsa wins the award, her novel My Soul to Take was nominated for the American Shamus Awards last year.

Yrsa's next book, due next Christmas, will reportedly feature Þóra again. In light of the success of I Remember You, however, it is likely that she will soon again write another horror story. I Remember You will be published in German in the autumn under the title Geistefjord, and soon after in the United States, England and Portugal. The book's film rights were sold to the Icelandic producer Sigurjón Sighvatsson earlier this year.


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