Orenda scores hat-trick on 2023 Petrona Award longlist

Orenda Books has secured three entries on the Petrona Award for Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year longlist amidst a "significant" rise in submissions.

Twelve crime novels from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland have been featured.

Sweden has the highest number of longlisted titles with five on the list while Denmark and Norway both have two. Finland, Iceland and Switzerland all have one entry, with translators Don Bartlett and Tara F Chace both nominated twice.

Orenda is leading the way with three books including Kjell Ola Dahl’s Little Drummer, translated by Don Bartlett representing Norway. Norwegian author and previous Petrona winner Gunnar Staalesen’s Bitter Flowers is also recognised, again with translation by Bartlett, as is Icelandic author Lilja Sigurðardóttir is also nominated for Red as Blood translated by Quentin Bates.

The bulk of nominations come from independently-published titles which also includes Death in Summer from Swedish author Lina Areklew, translated by Chace (Canelo Crime) and Finnish writer Petra Rautiainen’s Land of Snow and Ashes translated by David Hackston Pushkin Press), along with Swiss entry Kalmann written by Joachim B Schmidt and translated by Jamie Lee Searle (Bitter Lemon Press).

Other indie entries include Femicide from Sweden, by Pascal Engman translated by Michael Gallagher (Legend Press) as well as The Corpse Flower from Denmark, written by Anne Mette Hancock and translated by Chace again (Swift Press).

Two titles published by Hachette are Jussi Adler-Olsen’s The Shadow Murders (Denmark, Quercus), translated by William Frost, and Swedish author Susanne Jansson’s Winter Water translated by Rachel Willson-Broyles (Hodder & Stoughton).

Two fellow Swedes complete the longlist with Håkan Nesser nominated for The Axe Woman translated by Sarah Death (Mantle) and Gustaf Skördeman in the running for Codename Faust translated by Ian Giles (Zaffre).

The significantly increased number of entries for this year’s Petrona Award illustrates the continuing popularity of Scandinavian crime fiction in translation, organisers said.

The judging panel features bookseller and blogger Jackie Farrant, the creator of Raven Crime Reads, Miriam Owen, speaker and founder of the Nordic Noir blog as well as Ewa Sherman, translator and writer, and blogger at Nordic Lighthouse. The Award administrator is Karen Meek, owner of the Euro Crime blog and website.

The shortlist will be announced on 7th September 2023.

The prize was originally established to celebrate the work of Maxine Clarke, one of the first online crime fdiction reviewers and bloggers, who died in 2012. Her online persona and blog was called Petrona, was passionate about translated crime fiction but in particular that from the Scandinavian countries.

The award is open to crime fiction in translation, either written by a Scandinavian author or set in Scandinavia and published in the UK in the previous calendar year. It is sponsored by David Hicks. 

Last year’s prize went to Fatal Isles by Maria Adolfsson, translated from the Swedish by Agnes Broomé and published by Zaffre.