Irish Crime Writing: Lost In Translation?

Glenn Harper over at International Noir is always worth listening to on the subject of crime fiction, and he recently ran the rule over Brian McGilloway’s latest, BLEED A RIVER DEEP, with the gist running thusly:

“It is Devlin’s empathy and conscience that make the books interesting and give them depth beyond the average police procedural … McGilloway deserves the attention he has been getting for his Devlin novels: he’s stretching the boundaries of the crime novel without condescending to the genre, and his novels deserve even wider recognition among crime fans and general readers.”

  For the full review, clickety-click here. Meanwhile, Glenn finishes up with a question:

“A question for those who know better than I what’s happening in the translations of the new Irish crime wave: are readers outside the English-speaking world getting access to the fine crime fiction of McGilloway, Declan Hughes, Declan Burke, Gene Kerrigan, etc?”

  Speaking for myself, I can only say that readers inside the English-speaking world aren’t getting access to my crime fiction, fine or otherwise, and I’d imagine readers in the non-English-speaking world will be waiting quite a while to read THE BIG O or any of its follow-ups. EIGHTBALL BOOGIE was published in France and Holland, much to my surprise and delight, and THE BIG O was scheduled to be published in Hungary, of all places, later this year, although the current economic climate has put the kibosh on that one. Boo, etc.   As for the other writers, I really can’t say if they’re being translated or not. Can anyone else help?
  One Irish crime writer who is definitely being translated is Benjamin Black, whose CHRISTINE FALLS I saw in a Bergamo bookshop during my recent trip to Italy. Funnily enough, the Italian version of CHRISTINE FALLS was published under the nom-de-plume ‘John Banville’. Cheeky sods …