Taiwanese novelist Chi Wei-jan (紀蔚然) has won another international award for his first detective novel. "Private Eyes" was announced as the winner of this year's Maltese Falcon Award, making Chi the first Taiwanese to win the award.
According to a statement issued by Ink Literary (印刻文學), the founder of the Japanese branch of the Maltese Falcon Society and translator Jiro Kimura made a post on Twitter, announcing the winner of the award. This is the second Japanese award that Chi has won this year after receiving the Honkaku Mystery Award in June.
Since "Private Eyes" was published in 2011, not only did it win the China Times Open Book Award, Asia Weekly Top 10 Chinese Novel of the Year but it also won the 2012 Taipei Book Fair Award for Fiction. The novel was later translated into French, Japanese, Italian, Turkish, Korean, and Simplified Chinese. The sequel of "Private Eyes" titled "DV8: Private Eyes 2" was released last year, telling the story of the main character who moved from Liuzhangli to the riverside of Tamsui, and continues to solve mysteries for readers all around the world.
Founded in San Francisco in 1981, the Maltese Falcon Award was named after the 1930 detective novel "The Maltese Falcon" by American author Dashiell Hammett. After it became inactive in the United States, the Japanese branch of the society continues to present the award to honor the best hardboiled mystery novel published in Japan annually. The past winners of the award were esteemed contemporary fiction writers, including Lawrence Block who won twice for his work "When the Sacred Ginmill Closes" and "A Ticket to the Boneyard." Famed authors Michael Connelly, Robert B. Parker, Sue Grafton, and Don Winslow, among others, were also awarded the Falcon Award.
(Photo Credit: Ink Literary / photographer Chen Chien Chung)