So they just handed out a bunch of literary prizes at the Semana Negra 2015, and the Premio Dashiell Hammett went to Yo fui Johnny Thunders by Carlos Zanón; see, for example, Carlos Zanón gana el premio Dashiell Hammett 2015 in El País.
I have to admit that I thought it was kind of sad that a prize for the best Spanish-language crime novel (well, 'novela negra') was named after a non-Spanish-writing author. It has an impressive track-record, with winning titles by Paco Ignacio Taibo II (again and again), Leonardo Padura, Jorge Franco, Ricardo Piglia -- even Sergio Ramírez's Divine Punishment (just recently out in English translation) -- but still .....
Looking at what the body behind the prize is -- the Asociación Internacional de Escritores Policiacos/International Association of Crime Writers -- both clears up and muddies the question further: founded in 1986 in Havana, the founding authors consisting of: "Paco Ignacio Taibo II of Mexico, Julian Semionov of the then U.S.S.R., Jiri Prochazka (Czechoslovakia), Rafael Ramírez Heredia (Mexico), Daniel Chavarría (Uruguay), Alberto Molina and Rodolfo Perez (Cuba)", this looks very much to have been set up as a counter-weight to 'Western' mystery-writers organizations -- and so you can see why they'd go with Hammett (if they had to go with an English-writing author).
Yet its (few) international branches look pretty local-mainstream, and among them is the North American one -- which hands out its own Hammett Prize (also with a reasonably solid list of winners (though Alice Hoffman beating out Walter Mosley and Donald E. Westlake in 1992 is ... striking)). (The German branch -- Das Syndikat -- sensibly went local-language: theirs is the Friedrich Glauser Preis.)
A bit confusing and murky ... but maybe appropriate for a noirish organization/prizes.
I have to admit that I thought it was kind of sad that a prize for the best Spanish-language crime novel (well, 'novela negra') was named after a non-Spanish-writing author. It has an impressive track-record, with winning titles by Paco Ignacio Taibo II (again and again), Leonardo Padura, Jorge Franco, Ricardo Piglia -- even Sergio Ramírez's Divine Punishment (just recently out in English translation) -- but still .....
Looking at what the body behind the prize is -- the Asociación Internacional de Escritores Policiacos/International Association of Crime Writers -- both clears up and muddies the question further: founded in 1986 in Havana, the founding authors consisting of: "Paco Ignacio Taibo II of Mexico, Julian Semionov of the then U.S.S.R., Jiri Prochazka (Czechoslovakia), Rafael Ramírez Heredia (Mexico), Daniel Chavarría (Uruguay), Alberto Molina and Rodolfo Perez (Cuba)", this looks very much to have been set up as a counter-weight to 'Western' mystery-writers organizations -- and so you can see why they'd go with Hammett (if they had to go with an English-writing author).
Yet its (few) international branches look pretty local-mainstream, and among them is the North American one -- which hands out its own Hammett Prize (also with a reasonably solid list of winners (though Alice Hoffman beating out Walter Mosley and Donald E. Westlake in 1992 is ... striking)). (The German branch -- Das Syndikat -- sensibly went local-language: theirs is the Friedrich Glauser Preis.)
A bit confusing and murky ... but maybe appropriate for a noirish organization/prizes.