Category Archives: Crime fiction and film from Africa

New crime anthologies and Ned Kelly Awards

Posted on September 1, 2011 by Andrew Nette| 3 Comments

An interesting trend that seems to be occurring parallel with the rise of e-publishing is the growing popularity of short story anthologies.

I’m told by people who know about these things, that anthologies are not popular with mainstream publishers. Well, e-publishing is now allowing small niche publishers to get their product out there.

Exhibits A and B are two upcoming crime anthologies, both of which I have stories in.

In September, the first Crime Factory anthology will be available through US indie crime publisher, New Pulp Press.

Crime Factory: The First Shift contains 28 noir stories from established and emerging authors in the US, UK, South Africa and Australia. There’s names Australian crime readers may be familiar with, including Ken Bruen (author of The White Trilogy and London Boulevard), Adrian McKinty (Falling Glass), and local writer, Leigh Redhead (Thrill City).

First Shift is also a chance for Australian audiences to check out several members of the new wave of noir writers in the United States who are relatively unknown here, including Hilary Davidson, Dave Zeltserman, Scott Wolven and Dennis Tafoya. South African writer, Roger Smith, whose upcoming book Dust Devils is on my to read list, also contributed a story.

You can pre-order Crime Factory: The First Shift here at Barns and Noble and Amazon.… Read more

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Posted in Angela Savage, Australian crime fiction, Crime Factory, Crime fiction, Crime fiction and film from Africa, Ned Kelly Awards, Neo Noir

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Viva Riva!

Posted on August 1, 2011 by Andrew Nette| 4 Comments

Can someone please tell me why we are still obsessing about crime fiction and film from places like Scandinavia when there is so much interesting material coming out of Africa and Asia?

I ask this because last week I saw the 2010 Congolese crime film, Viva Riva! and thought it was great.

Viva Riva! is set in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The nearly three-decade rule of Mobutu Sese Seko, Africa’s most corrupt despot (and that’s saying something) is over, and the city is recovering from brutal street fighting in the aftermath of the disputed 2006 elections.

Small-time gangster, Riva, has returned from neighbouring Angola with a truckload of stolen petrol. Kinshasa is in the middle of a fuel shortage. Riva and his crew aim to get rich quick by selling the lot at top dollar.

Hot on his trail is Cesar, an enforcer for the Angolan interests Riva has stolen the fuel from. Cesar wants the petrol back and proceeds to cut a bloody swathe through Kinshasa to get it. Helping Cesar is the Commandant, a female Congalese military commander whose sister is being held captive by the Angolans.

Everyone in this film is on the make, whether it’s for money, sex, food, or safety. And everyone is corrupt.

… Read more

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Posted in Crime fiction and film from Africa, Crime film, Melbourne International Film Festival

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Crime scene at the Melbourne International Film Festival

Posted on July 17, 2011 by Andrew Nette| 1 Comment

I don’t know what everyone else thinks, but I’ve found the last couple of Melbourne International Film Festivals a bit lacklustre, especially when it comes to crime cinema. Having just read the latest program, I’m happy to say it looks like a very different story in 2011.

Maybe it’s the influence of new artistic director Michelle Carey, but MIFF 2011 offers a veritable feast of local and international crime cinema, including a section solely devoted to the genre, Crime Scene.

That said, the tickets are not cheap and time is limited. I’m also keen to avoid films that will probably get a mainstream release soon after the festival or be easier to check out on DVD.

My top pick for MIFF 2011 is the Congalese crime thriller Viva Riva! about a small-time gangster in Kinshasa who ignites a gang war when he steals a truck load of petrol in the middle of a fuel shortage. I’ve never heard of the director, Djo Munga (who cites his chief influences as Akira Kurosawa and Sergio Leonne), but the film has done fantastically in his native Africa and if the trailer is anything to go by it’s definitely worth checking out.

 

Viva Riva! (2010)

 

Viva Riva! is one of several interesting looking films in the Crime Scene program.… Read more

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Posted in 1970s American crime films, Australian crime film, Crime fiction and film from Africa, Crime fiction and film from South Korea, Crime film, Melbourne International Film Festival, Yakuza films

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Book review: A Beautiful Place to Die

Posted on March 20, 2011 by Andrew Nette| 1 Comment

NunnMalla Nunn’s 2008 book A Beautiful Place to Die has been on my reading list for ages. It’s great. Pretty much as damn near perfect a first crime novel as I’ve find.

The book’s strengths – fantastic writing, an amazing sense of place, a wonderful less is more quality – are established in the first paragraph.

“Detective Sergeant Emmanuel Cooper switched off the engine and looked out through the dirty windscreen. He was in deep country. To get any deeper he’d have to travel back in time to the Zulu wars. Two Ford pick-up trucks, a white Mercedes and a police van parked to his right placed him in the twentieth century. Ahead of him a group of black farm workers stood along a rise with their backs towards him. The hard line of their shoulders obscured what lay ahead.”

A Beautiful Place to Die is set in South Africa in the early fifties at the dawn of the Apartheid system. Detective Sergeant Emmanuel Cooper has been sent to investigate the murder of prominent Afrikaner policeman Captain Willem Pretorius, in the small town of Jacob’s Rest on South Africa’s border with Mozambique.

Not only does Emmanuel have to deal with Pretorius’s angry sons, two very nasty special branch detectives are sniffing around the case, sure that the murder is a political killing, the work of communists.… Read more

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Posted in Australian crime fiction, Crime fiction, Crime fiction and film from Africa, Malla Nunn

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