News Archive

Bad Traffic
Simon Lewis is shortlisted for French fiction award

The latest novel from Welsh writer and Academi Member Simon Lewis had been shortlisted for the SNCF Prix Solar a  French award for crime fiction.

Bad Traffic, a crime thriller about people smugglers, was published by Sort of Books in 2008 and has since been translated into six languages. It is Simon’s second novel, and was also shortlisted for The Los Angeles Times Book Prize (mystery/thriller section) in 2009.

About Bad Traffic:
Inspector Jian is a Chinese cop who thinks he's seen it all. But his search for his missing daughter brings him to the meanest streets he's ever faced -in rural England. Migrant worker Ding Ming is distressed - his gangmaster's making demands, he owes a lot of money to the snakeheads and no one will tell him where his wife has been taken. Maybe England isn't the 'gold mountain' he was promised. Two desperate men, uneasy allies in a baffling foreign land, are pitted against a band of ruthless people smugglers… there's BAD TRAFFIC ahead.

Simon was born in Raglan in 1971 and went to school in Monmouth, followed by art college in Newport. He studied art at Goldsmiths College and then worked as a travel writer, researching the Rough Guide to China. He is the author of Go (Corgi, 1999), a crime thriller about travellers, which he wrote in a village in the Himalayas. Simon was on the 'HAY 21' list for the most promising writers at the Guardian Hay-on-Wye literary festival 2008. He currently lives in Brixton and Shanghai, and feels very connected to Wales. His new novel is due out next year.

For further information about Bad Traffic and the SNCF Prix Solar
click here to visit Simon’s website.
To view Simon’s Academi Writers of Wales page click here.