Writer slays competition: Christchurch's Paul Cleave featured in today's The Press newspaper

There is a nice story about Kiwi crime writer Paul Cleave winning the 2011 Ngaio Marsh Award in today's issue of The Press, the South Island's biggest newspaper. It's great to see some hometown media support for and celebration of Cleave's achievement (and a nice big pic of Cleave with the Award too), as the internationally bestselling author has been a little overlooked here in New Zealand by many in the books world; for example bookstores and event organisers, etc, in the past - despite his tremendous (and growing) overseas success.

It's been quite a year for Cleave - in recent months he has largely been based in Europe, and has also travelled to North America; meeting agents, editors, publishers, film companies and others as his writing career goes from strength to strength.

Cleave's books have now been signed up for publication in 19 countries (the most recent being Spain, Korea, and Bulgaria), and have been translated into more than a dozen languages. He has secured high spots on bestseller lists in France, Germany, and Turkey. Over the next year he will be appearing at books festivals in several countries, and recently and in the next few months he's had (or will have) further books come out in Italy, Brazil, the United States, France, Turkey, Taiwan, and Germany.

In short, Cleave is becoming a bona fide international crime writing star - and hopefully more and more of his compatriots will begin to catch on too. As Kiwis, we're often proud (deservedly so) of the achievements of our sportspeople, film makers, musicians, and others on the world stage - despite the fact they come from a small country at the end of the world - but we've been a little less vocal about the quality and success of our writers. Hopefully that will continue to change in future, perhaps led by the likes of Cleave.

You can read the full news story from The Press here.

Have you read BLOOD MEN, the Ngaio Marsh Award winning novel, or any of Paul Cleave's other dark thrillers? Were you at yesterday's event (or wish you were)? Do you think New Zealand should be prouder and more supportive of its writers, including its crime writers? Comments welcome.