The  Festival de Novel·la Negra de Barcelona, BCNegra, is already gearing up for its 2026 edition. It will be held from 2 to 8 February across three central venues: Paral·lel 62, La Paloma and Mooby Cinema Bosque. The first confirmed authors among nearly a hundred participants are Dominique Manotti, Richard Price, Núria Cadenes, and Guillermo Saccomanno.

Writer Carlos Zanón will once again serve as curator for this well-established event, which is part of the “Barcelona UNESCO City of Literature” programme by the Barcelona Institute of Culture. This year, the festival’s central theme will be Malavida. “Vinicio Capossela, in his book Tefteri on the culture of Greek rebetiko musicians, advocates giving a life fully lived when death comes. A life lived. An intense, fun, wild, and exciting life. In the best sense, a Malavida, as Manu Chao sang with Mano Negra in the ’80s,” reads the presentation on the BCNegra website.

As usual, panel discussions featuring several genre authors will form the core of the programme, but there will also be musical performances, film screenings, workshops, exhibitions, dialogues, and the presentation of the Pepe Carvalho Award. In addition to the three main venues, several city libraries will host some activities.

Four Leading Figures

Dominique Manotti: Born in Paris in 1942, she has developed her entire intellectual and personal life in the city. A historian specializing in contemporary economic history, she worked as a university professor and understood history as a tool of thought based on the search for clues and the construction of narratives. This methodological rigor decisively shaped her literary work. Politically engaged from a young age, she participated in the fight for Algeria’s independence and in Marxist and revolutionary movements during the 1960s and 1970s. Later, she found in crime fiction a way to express the experiences and disillusionments of her generation, always combining history, activism, and writing with a critical view of society.

Richard Price: Author of nine novels, including Clockers, Freedom, and The Samaritan, as well as Easy Money (Literatura Random House, 2010) and his first novel, The Wanderers (Roja y Negra, 2013), written at the age of 24. Price gained worldwide recognition in 1986 for the screenplay of The Color of Money, earning an Oscar nomination. Since then, he has worked as a screenwriter on numerous films and TV series. He has received the American Academy of Arts and Letters award and the 2007 Edgar Award as co-writer of the HBO series The Wire. He is also the author of The Whites (Literatura Random House, 2016) and will publish Lázaro Resucitado (Random House) in January 2026.

Núria Cadenes: Born in Barcelona in 1970. She is a writer, journalist, and has worked as a bookseller. She has lived in the Valencian Community for more than twenty-five years. She has written around ten books, including non-fiction, short stories, and novels. With Guillem, she won the Lletra d’Or Prize and the València Negra Prize. Her latest novel, Tiberi Cèsar, now translated into Spanish, was a finalist for the Finestres and Llibreter awards.

Guillermo Saccomanno: Born in Buenos Aires in 1948. Writer, screenwriter, and essayist, he is one of Argentina’s most prominent intellectual figures. His prolific work spans short stories, novels, and essays, including El buen dolor (National Literature Prize, 2000), the trilogy on violence composed of La lengua del malón, El amor argentino, and 77 (Dashiell Hammett Award, 2009), El oficinista (Biblioteca Breve Prize, 2010), Cámara Gesell (Dashiell Hammett Award, 2013), and Un maestro (Rodolfo Walsh Award, 2012), among many others. He is also the author of Cuentos reunidos and has collaborated with Fernanda García Lao on several books. He has received numerous awards, including the Konex Platinum Award and the Democracia Prize, and his work has been translated into several languages. He currently contributes to the newspaper Página/12.

The Poster, by Joan Alturo

The image illustrating BCNegra 2026 is by Barcelona illustrator and artist Joan Alturo. Like the festival, its central concept is Malavida, understood by Alturo as a universe linked to the streets, nightlife, punk spirit, and precarious conditions. This vision is embodied in the figure of a young person leaning against a wall, integrated into a dark scene, with a book emitting dense smoke, evoking both the toxic dimension of Malavida and the instability and vulnerability of life on the streets.

With nearly a decade of professional experience and a lifelong passion for drawing, Joan Alturo brings a visual language that is metaphorical, geometric, synthetic, and vividly colored, with strong expressive power. He has been published in outlets such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, and El País, and has received recognitions including a Fulbright fellowship and a nomination for the Victoria & Albert Museum Illustration Awards.

More information is available on the BCNegra festival website.