Contemporary French and Scandinavian Crime Fiction
Citizenship, Gender and Ethnicity
9781786837189
Distributed for University of Wales Press
Contemporary French and Scandinavian Crime Fiction
Citizenship, Gender and Ethnicity
A comparative approach to French and Scandinavian crime fiction.
This book offers a study of Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, and French crime fiction from 1965 to the present. Anne Grydehøj presents twelve literary case studies to examine how the genre responded to shifting social realities. The book’s analysis focuses on the way that crime fiction internalized themes regarding the French model of republican universalism and the Scandinavian welfare state—both of which were routinely characterized as being in a state of crisis at the end of the twentieth century. Adopting a comparative and interdisciplinary approach, the book investigates the interplay between contemporary Scandinavian and French crime narratives as it considers the way these novels engaged with the relationship between state and citizen through the lens of class, gender, sexuality, and ethnicity.
This book offers a study of Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, and French crime fiction from 1965 to the present. Anne Grydehøj presents twelve literary case studies to examine how the genre responded to shifting social realities. The book’s analysis focuses on the way that crime fiction internalized themes regarding the French model of republican universalism and the Scandinavian welfare state—both of which were routinely characterized as being in a state of crisis at the end of the twentieth century. Adopting a comparative and interdisciplinary approach, the book investigates the interplay between contemporary Scandinavian and French crime narratives as it considers the way these novels engaged with the relationship between state and citizen through the lens of class, gender, sexuality, and ethnicity.
272 pages | 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 | © 2021
Literature and Literary Criticism: General Criticism and Critical Theory
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Part I: The Structure of Crime Fiction Revolutions
Chapter 1 – Social and Literary Models in Crisis
Chapter 2 – Individual and Collective Identities in the Twenty-First Century
PART II: Gender and Genre
Chapter 3 – Gender and Sexuality in the femikrimi and the polar au féminin
Chapter 4 – The Figure of the Prostitute
Part III: Cultures in Migration
Chapter 5 – Bled and Banlieue in French Crime Fiction
Chapter 6 – Self and Other in Scandinavian Crime Fiction
Conclusion: Closing the Case
Selected bibliography
Introduction
Part I: The Structure of Crime Fiction Revolutions
Chapter 1 – Social and Literary Models in Crisis
Chapter 2 – Individual and Collective Identities in the Twenty-First Century
PART II: Gender and Genre
Chapter 3 – Gender and Sexuality in the femikrimi and the polar au féminin
Chapter 4 – The Figure of the Prostitute
Part III: Cultures in Migration
Chapter 5 – Bled and Banlieue in French Crime Fiction
Chapter 6 – Self and Other in Scandinavian Crime Fiction
Conclusion: Closing the Case
Selected bibliography