The Becnegra Black novel contest this year celebrates 20 editions since in 2005 began its journey, and to celebrate it the organizers have decided Dominique Manotti, Manuel Rivas I Arnaldur Indriðason.
The list of names also includes Virginia Feito, Lluís Riera, François Thomazeau, Sara Barquinero, Martin Suter, Ivy Pochoda, Andrés Martin, Jo Alexander, Javier Argüello, Ann Cleeves, Pepe Correa, Diego Muzzio, Reynaldo Setcases, Albert Pijuan, Greta García, Mariantuá Correa, Kiko Amat or Luis Llort among others.
The program, which includes 145 participants, will have 46 activities between round tables, theater, music, cinema, podcast, game, workshops and reading clubs and will take place from February 10 to 16 in the parallel 62 rooms and the dove, so Like the Mooby Forest cinema. On the other hand, this edition has as a backbone three cities that are host of large ports, which involves this fact in the police genre: Barcelona, Marseille and Naples.
Yasmina Khadra, Pepe Carvalho 2025 Award
The Algerian writer Yasmina Khadra (whose real name is Mohammed Moulessehoul) is the winner of the Pepe Carvalho 2025 award, which will be delivered on Thursday, February 13 at the Saló de Cent of the City Council of Barcelona. Former Algerian Army officer, Moulessehoul was born in 1955 in the Algeria desert. His mother was a nomadic woman and her father an army nurse who with just nine years enrolled in a military academy.
Your first novel, Houriahe wrote it in the barracks with 18 years, but he did not publish it until after a decade, in 1984. By 1989 he had already written five books under the skeptical look of his superiors. That skepticism led him to adopt a female pseudonym, Yasmina Khadra, to overcome censorship in his country until he became a mass phenomenon, both in the Arab world and especially in France. It is then that he decides to reveal Khadra’s identity, although he continued publishing with the pseudonym, and emigrate to France.
Barcelona-Marsella-Naples
The present edition of BCNEGRA has as a backbone motto of its activities the literary and social axis Barcelona-Marsella-Naples. The organization of the contest explains the reasons for this election: “There are three cities on the banks of the same sea, the Mediterranean, the three capitals without their own state and counterweight to the official power of their respective countries; the three cosmopolitas, somewhat chaotic, with similar and cultural and proud similarities and problems of their identity. ”
His own idiosyncrasy as port cities, as a southern reference of northern Europe, but also as north of the southern other human areas, and as mestizo and impure metropolis, has given rise, according to the organization, “to an abundant black literature of which In our country, authors such as Manolo Vázquez Montalbán or Andreu Martín stand out. ”
That is why Bcnegra will have round tables in which authors of Barcelona and other unpublished in Spain of Marseille and Naples will participate. There will also be an exhibition over the three cities, as well as musical performances, theatrical pieces, projection of films, podcasts and workshops. Bcnegra 2025 will have almost a hundred writers.

Main feathers
In addition to the award -winning Yasmina Khadra, other top -level writers in the black novel sector participate in BCNEGRA 2025 to try to reflect all the families that make up the rich world of the genre. The American Donna Leon is one of the writers with the greatest international recognition thanks to her commissioner Brunetti. She was the winner of the Pepe Carvalho award in the 2016 edition and will visit the festival to talk about Venice, where most of her production is located.
Behind Benjamin Black, who, like Khadra, is a pseudonym, hides the Irish journalist and writer John Banville, Prince of Asturias Award for Letters in 2014 and one of the most read authors in both Ireland and in the United Kingdom. For her part, the French writer Dominique Manotti, author of an emblematic book about Marseille and the uncomfortable French past with the decolonization of Algeria, Marseille 73 (Versatile, 2021), will talk about the French city with the writer, and also a translator of his last work to Spanish, Víctor del Tree.
BCNEGRA will also feature Icelandic novelist Arnaldur Indriðason, creator of Inspector Erlendur. The Galician novelist Manuel Rivas, National Prize for Letters 2024, will also participate, who will reflect on the literary nature of the black genre. In one of the numerous round tables, the singer and writer Loquíllo will be present, who will talk about the Barcelona of his memories, dreams and characters. It will also feature Anglo -Saxon writers such as Jordan Harper and Collin Barrett, who will reflect on how monotony and silence can be a great prelude to the outbreaks of criminal violence.
The festival will also feature other different authors, of cult, and who mastery the cruel humor, without filters or pre -established limits. In this sense, Kiko Amat, Albert Pijuan and Greta García will talk about humor as an antidote against solemnity and conventions. For their part, Toni Hill, Juan Carlos Galindo, and Inés Plana will talk about writing serial characters, while Jordi Casals and Leonardo Cano will treat the limits of the black genre introducing fantastic, dystopian and technological elements.
Music and cinema
But beyond the discussion and conferences tables, the contest will also have other activities such as music or cinema. Thus, Bcnegra will open its black week with a concert by singer -songwriter Quique González, accompanied by Toni Brunet, guitarist and Mallorcan producer. Several films linked to the three protagonist cities will also be screened at the Mooby Forest cinema. The Italian film will be screened on Wednesday 12 Le Mania Sulla Città From Francesco Rosi, winner of the Golden Lion in Venice in 1964, which narrates the investigation of an accident that splashes the builder entrepreneur of the neighborhood where it has happened.
On Thursday 13 you can see film BORSALINO by Jacques Deray, where two thieves of little flight come together after fighting for a woman in the Marseille of 1930. As for Barcelona, on Saturday, February 15 will be screened TattooPepe Carvalho’s first adventure, directed by Bigas Luna in 1976.
And in honor of Yasmina Khadra, winner of the Pepe Carvalho 2025 award, on Friday, February 14, the film will be screened The Attack by Ziad Douirihomonymous title of Khadra’s novel. It is an intense drama about jihadist terrorism. Finally, the theater will also find its place on Tuesday, February 11 in the La Paloma dance hall, with the premiere of the play Things you only know when you are deadof Francesc Salgado. The work covers the life of the largest reporter in the Second Republic in Barcelona, Irene Polo.
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