This year Noir in Festival’s highest honor for lifetime achievement by a literary master of the noir genre goes to Norway’s Jo Nesbø, who will be in Milan and Como from December 3 to 9 to receive the 2018 Raymond Chandler Award.

Born in 1960, his novels published in over fifty languages, with the Harry Hole series - devoted to the cop specialized in serial killers - Jo Nesbø has sold more than 35 million copies. His early novels saw him shoot to the top of the bestseller lists in Norway itself, and in no time he landed in the European top ten lists, the only non-English-speaking author to reach such heights in a reluctant England, even before the explosive popularity of Stieg Larsson. Rightly considered Larsson’s heir, Nesbø has roughly twenty books to his credit, including his thrillers, children’s stories, essays and short stories. Two films have been made out of his novels - Headhunters, directed by Morten Tyldum (Black Lion Award at Noir in Festival 2011), and The Snowman, directed by Tomas Alfredson (2017), starring Michael Fassbender as Harry Hole - as well as the TV series Occupied.

Noir in Festival, the leading showcase for the crime genre on the screen and on the printed page, will be presenting the latest literary and cinematic novelties from December 3 to 9 in Milan and Como, with an edition entirely devoted to the theme of zombies. In fact, 2018 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the progenitor of the genre, Night of the Living Dead by George A. Romero, who revolutionized the canons for thrillers and horror movies back in 1968 and gave new meaning to the voodoo tradition, from the fear of ‘otherness’ to the legend of the undead. A packed lineup of film premieres, talks with authors, peaks at TV series, awards for the best Italian noir of the year (the Caligari Prize for film and the Scerbanenco Award for books), along with forays into Lake Como’s own tradition of mystery - it’s all in store at the 28th edition of Noir in Festival, directed by Giorgio Gosetti, Marina Fabbri and Gianni Canova (IULM delegate).

Photos by Thron Ullberg.