1st Edition
Murder in the Multinational State Crime Fiction from Spain
As Spaniards set out to transform the political, social and cultural landscape of the nation following the death of dictator Francisco Franco in 1975, its crime fiction traces, challenges and celebrates these radical changes. Crime Fiction from Spain: Murder in the Multinational State provides a comprehensive exploration of the relationship between detective fiction and national and cultural identities in post-Franco democratic Spain. What sort of stories are told about the nation within the state in the crime genre? How do the conventions of the crime story shape not only the production of national and cultural identities, but also their disruption? Combining criminological theories of crime and community with an analysis of the genre’s conventions, this study challenges the simple classification of Spanish crime fiction as texts written by Spaniards, set in Spain and with Spanish characters. Instead, it develops a dramatic new reading practice which allows for a greater understanding of the role of crime fiction in the construction and articulation of different and, at times, competing, national and cultural identities, including in the Basque Country, Catalonia and Galicia. The book provides a stimulating introduction to the key debates on the study of crime fiction and national and cultural identities in the context of a multinational state.
Preface: A Confession of Sorts
Introduction: Constructing Communities in Crime Fiction: The Case of Spain
Chapter 1: Nations and their Margins: Manuel Vázquez Montalbán’s Carvalho Series
Chapter 2: Criminal Records and Democratic Futures: Investigating the Spanish Civil War and Franco Dictatorship
Chapter 3: The Language of Detection in Catalan Crime Fiction
Chapter 4: The Consequences of Crime: Victims in the Basque Thriller
Chapter 5: The Usual Suspects: Investigating Stereotypes and Modernity in the Galician Crime Novel
Chapter 6: Contemporary Police Fiction: The Return of Centralised Authority
Conclusion: Interrogating Identities in the Multinational, Multicultural State and Beyond
Bibliography
Index
Biography
Stewart King is Senior Lecturer in Spanish and Latin American Studies and coordinates the International Literatures program at Monash University, Australia. He completed a PhD in Spanish and Catalan Studies at La Trobe University. He is the author of Escribir la catalanidad (Tamesis, 2005) and has edited or co-edited several collections, including The Space of Culture: Critical Readings in Hispanic Studies (University of Delaware Press, 2004) and "The Future of Memory in Spain" (Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 2017). He is currently co-editing The Routledge Companion to Crime Fiction.
